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FEBRUARY 1988

WINGATE CLASS-A AMPLIFIER TANDBERG CD PLAYER R-DAT USER REPORT

A PASSIVE PREAMPLIFIER SCHUBERT'S GREAT C-MAJOR

INDEX TO 1987

SONOGRAPHE SYSTEMS: For Those Whose Discriminating Taste Exceeds Their Means

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amplifier and monitor speakers.

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CONTENTS

AS WE SEE IT LETTERS INDUSTRY UPDATE High-End News from the USA and UK

THE BEST SOUND IN NEW YORK The results ol the Stereophile Show visitors survey

AUDIO WITH ROTARY HEADS George Graves lives with a Luxman R-DAT recorder

INTERSTELLAR OVERDRIVE • John Atkinson talks with John Bau of Spica Speakers

AN ABSENCE OF GAIN? Ben Duncan offers a DIY passive preamplifier design

EQUIPMENT REPORTS Wilson WATTs loudspeaker (MC). 88 Spica Angelus loudspeaker (JA) . 96 Kindel Purist LT loudspeaker (TJN) 101 Castle Durham loudspeaker (TJN) 103 Audio Concepts Quartz loudspeaker (TJN) 105 AR Powered Partner loudspeaker (BS) 108 Wingate 2000A power amplifier (DO) 110 Sima W-3050 power amplifier (TJN) 114 Parasound HCA-800 power amplifier (TJN) 116 Tandbérg 3015A CD player (JGH) 118 Audio Control Phase-Coupleo Activator (BS) 121 dbx 120BX subharmonic synthesizer (BS) 121 Luxman T-117 FM tuner (DAS) 124

FOLLOW UP Bedini 150/150 Mk.II amplifier (DO) 126 Monitor Audio R952MD loudspeaker (JA) • 127

BUILDING A LIBRARY 129 Christopher Breunig looks at Schubert's Great C-Major Symphony on record

RECORD REVIEWS 133 BOOK REVIEWS 169 INDEX TO STEREOPHILE VOLUME 10 174 MANUFACTURERS COMMENTS 179 COMING ATTRACTIONS 4 WHERE TO BUY STEREOPHILE 191 AUDIO MART 199 BACK ISSUES 177 SUBSCRIPTIONS 75 FOREIGN SUBSCRIPTIONS 75 ADVERTISER INDEX 209 THE FINAL WORD 210

Larry Archibald offers a publisher's point of view

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52

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FEBRUARY 1988 VOL. 11 NO. 2

Stereophile, February 1988

COMING ATTRACTIONS

The March issue of Stereopbile (Vol.]] No.3) offers much to intrigue, inform, and entertain the audiophile J. Gordon Holt, as spry as ever,

reports on what was new in high-end audio at the Las Vegas CES; Dick Olsher reports on the state of the electrostatic art; Amis Balgalvis kicks off his writing career for Stereopbile with a review of Bill Firebaugh's Well-Tempered Ibmtable; Bill Sommerwerck provides an in-depth report on which surround-sound de-coders best decode Dolby Stereo video sound-tracks; Martin Colloms analyzes the perfor-

mance of a most unusual British loudspeaker, Mordaunt-Short's System 442; Thomas J. Nor-ton surveys the field of modified Philips/Mag-navox CD players; and Ken Kessler talks to Naim Audio's Julian Vereker. Works in progress due to appear in the next

two or three issues of Stereopbile include Dick Olsher's hopefully definitive survey of loud-

speaker cables—if the word "definitive" should ever be used for a component that seems to change so often—and a look at the undersea

world of subwoofers, including models from Sumo, Kinergetics, Coggin-Hall, Nelson-Reed,

and Entec. JGH will review cost-no-object loudspeakers, including, we hope, the Infinity IRS Beta; Amis Balp,alvis will be reporting on

STAFF Publisher Larry Archibald

Founder and Chief Tester J Gordon Holt

Editor John Atkinson

Assistant Editor Richard Lehnert

Contributing Editors (hardware)

Arms Balgalv is Martin Colloms Alvin Gold George M. Graves II Ken Kessler Peter Mitchell

Bebo Moroni Thomas J. Norton Dick Oisher Don A. Scott Bit Sommerwerck Stephen W. Watkinson

Musician in Residence Lewis Lipnick

Contributing Editors (records)

David B. Allvin Robert Hesson Barbara Jahn Igor Kiprus Gary S. Krakow Harold Lynn Richard Schneider Bernard Soil

Leslie S. Berkley James Berwin Christopher Breunig Kevin Conklin Gordon Emerson Mortimer H. Frank William A.C. Furtwangler

Business Manager Gail Anderson (505)982-2366

the Apogee Divas; I will be looking at British amplification from DNM and a complete sys-tem from Linn Products, as well a host of under-$1000 loudspeakers; Keith Yates has been examining one of the most promising room-acoustic treatments, the tantalizingly named Reflection Phase Gratings; and Lewis Lipnick is putting together a complete report on a classical recording session, including

politics, engineering, choice of program, and performance. And April will see a fully revised edition of

Stereopbile's authoritative "Recommended Components" feature.

In the Music Section, we hope to include 20 pages of record reviews in every issue; inter-views with Michala Petri and Ofra Hamoy are

in the works, as are reviews of two major new Wagner recordings; and Steréopbile's search for black vinyl will continue in New York, los Angeles, and London. And to those of you who buy your copy of

Stereopbile from a newstand, now that the magazine appears every month, why don't you consider subscribing? The subscription form can be found on page 75.

Aile‘41t, Advertising Representatives (Domestic East Coast 8 Foreign) Nelson 8, Associates (Ken Nelson) (914) 476-3157 (Domestic West Coast & National Dealer) Nelson 8. Associates (Laura J. Atkinson) (505) 988-3284

Production Manager Rebecca Willard

Production Andrew Main, Janice St. Marie 8 Susan Lamden

Ad Copy Manager Susan Lamden

Feature Design Michael Motley

Cover Design Jim Wood

Typesetting Copygraphics

Stereophile - Vol. 11 No. 2, February 1988, Issue Number g7. Stereophile (ISSN NO585-2544) is pub-lished monthly, $35.00 per year for U.S. residents by Stereophile, 208 Delgado, Santa Fe, NM 67501. Second class postage paid at Santa Fe, NM and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: send ad-dress changes to Stereophile, PO. Box 364, Mount Morris, IL 61054

Subscriptions U.S. residents 800-435-0715 800-892-0753 (Illinois) From outside U.S. call (505)982-2366.

4 Stereophile, February 1988

Now that Sony has bought CBS's rec-ords division, and the infamous Copy-

code bill seems to be dying in Con-gress, the way may be clearing at last for the

US introduction of the new Digital Audio Tape

system. This has sparked renewed speculation in the industry about the impact DAT will have

on existing formats, particularly the fledgling

CD. Some are convinced DAT will kill CD,

because of its ability to record as well as play

digital recordings. Others believe DAT won't even gain a foothold in the market, for the

same reason quadraphonic sound laid an egg back in the '70s: The public can't handle more

than one "standard" format. I feel that both views are wrong, and that—as is usually the case with extreme views—the truth lies in be-

tween. I believe DAT will catch on in the marketplace, but never in a big way, and cer-

tainly not the way CD has. Here's why. First, and probably most important, is that

DAT will have little to offer the average music

listener that he cannot now get from the con-ventional audio cassette at much lower cost.

The analog cassette is recordable, it does not

accumulate ticks and pops with repeated play-

ings. and it wears out slowly enough with

repeated playings that few users have ever ex-

hausted its life expectancy. The cassette is

pocketable, players can he eminently portable,

and it's as easy to use as CD. DAT confers no

advantage in any of those areas. As for the new system's superior sound

quality. relative to the analog cassette, I do not

foresee that having any significant effect on

DAT's marketplace acceptance. In fact, the

perceived difference between DAT reproduc-

tion and the sound from conventional cas-

settes will, for most consumers, be quite small.

A good cassette copy of a CD can never be a

perfect replica of it, hut the differences are

slight enough that the average person will be

hard put to hear them. There's a slight high-end softening that only trained listeners with good equipment are likely to notice. There's

also an increase in background hiss, which has apparently never bothered the average user,

either. In an automobile, it's buried under the

high ambient noise.' Even at home, where am-bient noise is much lower, the compact cas-sette's gentle hiss is still usually inaudible,

because most people listen to music which has limited dynamic range to begin with, and

because most "stereos" won't play loudly

enough to put a Dolby-B'ed cassette's hiss well

above the ambient noise level. The other advantages of DAT—the ability

I I am ignoring those idiots whose criterion of fi in a Cr is its ability to induce Needing from the rats Few of them have any hearing left ahove ikH anyway.

Stereophile, February 1988 5

e iThe very essence of the Delta Mode differential topology is to intrinsically oppose 'wdistortion, yet effortlessly magnify the music while accurately preserving its

harmonic phase structure to present an exquisitely detailed sonic picture of the live performance.

Regardless of your level of listening experience, the Delta Mode's unique sonic capabilities will transport you to center stage.

Quality and reliability by natural design. Satisfaction guaranteed! Please call or write for additional information.

Don J Cochran Inc.

Suite 109, 1900 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA 94303 USA

415-496-1900

to automatically locate different selections by

a numerical address, and to be programmed for playback in any desired order—will appeal

little to those people who now routinely put together their own programs on cassette from several different source recordings. And as for

the ability to encode DAT tapes with time

codes and other synchronizing data, these will he completely irrelevant for anyone but pro-fessional recording engineers.

Then there's the cost of DAT. The first recorder/players are expected to sell for be-

tween $1500 and $2000 in the US, with the (ex-pressed) expectation that prices will eventually

come down as increasing sales permit econo-

mies of mass production to take effect. But it

may take a long time for that to happen, partly

because of the new system's limited perceived value, partly because the nature of the beast

practically guarantees it will never be a cheap medium. Because of its complexity, a DAT

machine can never he as inexpensive to manu-

facture as a cassette machine is today, and may never be as rugged and reliable. Feeding a DA

corder will he expensive, too. The blank tapes

will cost between $9 and $14 initially, and may

never go below $9 because of the necessary precision and the lack of a broad consumer

base. The day of the 3-for-SI blank DAT cas-

sette is not in sight and will probably never come.

Prerecorded DAT software will cost even

more. lbday, you can buy a high-speed (60

times real-time) analog-cassette duplicator plus

six slaves for around $200,000, and blank cassettes may run around 30 cents each. The

only currently available high-speed duplicator for DAT tapes costs a cool 5600,000—enough

to discourage most prospective duplicators,

particularly when there is not as yet any mar-

ket at all for the software. A real-time DAT

duplicator, with 6 slaves, can be bought for a

mere $250,000, as compared with around $7000 for a comparable real-time setup for

analog cassettes. There is no way prerecorded

DAL can be priced competitively with con-ventional cassettes within the foreseeable future.

2 Casio, which has no CD-player market to support, intro-duced a miniature portable DAT recorder weighing less than Ikg at the Tokyo Audio Fair last October. Al the equivalent of II 100, this costs half the price of comming models from Sony and Matsushita. Casio must see R-DAT as a natural ex-tension of their high profile in the amateur music-making market.

But if DAT would seem to pose little threat to the compact cassette, what about its impact

on the other digital medium, CD? I believe there might be some cause for concern here

if the CD were not already firmly established

as the home-music medium, because DAT will

do everything the CD can do, as well as record with the same fidelity.

Many industry observers maintain it is the

VCR's ability to record which explains the public's indifference toward the non-record-

able LaserVision system, despite the latter's im-

age superiority. But I don't believe that parallel with video will hold in audio. It is true that a

lot of videophiles have been making cheap (and clearly illegal) copies of rented cassettes

in recent years, hut there was a lot more incen-

tive for doing that when the average price of a Hollywood film on cassette was $70. Today,

with many recent blockbusters going for $30

and scads of lesser ones priced at S 10 each,

most consumer video recorders are being used, not for copying of films, but for "time-

shifting" of broadcast programs whose sched-

uled airings prevent real-time viewing. But far

fewer people are interested in time-shifting radio programs—particularly music programs.

To most listeners, the few must-not-miss radio

shows tend to be talk shows, and (here we go again!) a conventional cassette will do just as

good a job of time-shifting these as a DAT recording.

The vinyl LP was never a recordable medium either, yet it outsold prerecorded cassettes for

20 years until—coincidentally or otherwise—

the introduction of the CD, when cassette sales

started to outstrip LP sales just as LPs started to lose out to CDs. But was it the CD's superior

sound3 that killed the LP? I think not. I believe

it was a combination of things—the fact that

CI) came along right after the home-computer revolution ("Digital is good!"), the attractive-

ness of something that would never wear out with use, and the striking appearance of the CD with its shifting spectrum of unbelievably

pure colors. But I am convinced that the most

important attraction of the CD for the average

person is its freedom from clicks and pops,

which have always plagued him more than

3 Audiophiles with $5000 phono units may sneer at this asser-tion, but when ).Q. Public compared CD sound with what

he was getting from his S'9.50 record player, the difference was staggering, and persuasive. And it is the general public, not the audiophile, that determines the commercial success of an audio product.


they have audiophiles because he neither took care of his records nor played them on equip-

ment which didn't emphasize the problems. If this is the case, though, why didn't the prerecorded analog cassette, which is equally

free from transient surface noise, bury the "scratchy" LP long ago? I attribute this to the

public perception of the LP as the "primary" home-music medium, plus the fact that for

most of its lifespan there were far more titles on LP than there have ever been on cassette.

In that particular respect, video history can give us one clue as to the potential marketplace viability of DAT: The thing that killed Beta was software availability. Beta was launched with a head start over any other home-video system because it was the first, but there was no pre-recorded software for it at the time. It was in-tended for time shifting of TV programs, and while its 1-hour running time was adequate for that purpose, it was useless for films. It wasn't until VHS was introduced, with its 2-or 4-hour record/play time, that it became possible to ac-commodate a full-length feature film on one cassette, and that was when Hollywood climbed

onto the home-video bandwagon. Sony prompt-ly countered with a Beta-II 2-hour speed, but

VHS's optional 4-hour capability offered substantial savings in tape costs for those who

wanted to record off the air and didn't care about the inferior picture quality at the slower tape speed. With blank tapes going for $25 each, the savings at half-speed were not incon-siderable. At that time, there were still relatively few films available for rental or purchase; movie buffs did most of their collecting off the airwaves, and they saw VHS-4 as the best way to do it. Sales of VHS machines soon started

to outstrip Betas. Naturally, the film studios courted the larger

base of consumer VCRs, releasing more titles on VHS than on Beta. And most VCR pur-chasers, planning to rent or buy films, opted for the format with the widest selection of titles—VHS. It became a tightening vortex with Beta in the middle, until most of the soft-ware publishers saw the writing on the wall and pulled the plug on Beta altogether. Today, it is the favored format with home videotapers, as well as for professional ENG use, but as a

cinema-at-home medium it is dead. DAT faces the same uphill fight as did Beta,

only more so. There are literally thousands of

CD titles available now, while there is not a

single prerecorded DAT tape to be found in any record store. And there won't be until there are lots of players out there to reproduce them on. But who will spend $1500 on a machine for which there is no prerecorded software? Even if DAT is launched along with an impressive

first release of software titles, it will be forever-after trying to catch up with a medium that has

a huge head start. I don't believe it ever will. The success of any new product depends

on its perceived value, not its real value. The CD, as a non-recordable medium, was seen as a superior incarnation of the LP, and as far as most people were concerned, there was just no comparison. Today, CD collectors are nearly all ex-LP buyers. People whose home-music medium has been the cassette all along have not, by and large, been seduced by CD, be-cause the players and the software cost more than cassette, and, as far as they can see, have less to offer. The average cassette player sounds far better than the average el cheapo phono unit, and will record as well as play back. The public will view DAT as competition for the compact cassette, not the CD. And I sincerely doubt that DAT will be perceived as being superior enough to analog cassette to displace it the way CD has displaced the LP. I do, however, believe there is a place for

DAT in the order of things. Its major appeal will be to people who are best able to take ad-

vantage of what it has to offer: those who de-. mand the best sound quality attainable, and who are acutely aware of the shortcomings of analog. This means, primarily, audio people who make original, live recordings, and in-

cludes serious amateur recordists and profes-sional recording engineers, particularly in the film business. Aside from CDs (which are becoming cheap enough that there is little point in copying them to DAT), only live, original material offers high enough quality to

take full advantage of DAT's signal/noise and bandwidth capabilities. And the ability to make flawless digital copies from DAT masters will delight professional users, to whom an original recording is often just the first step in a series culminating in the finished product. But for many such prospective users, DAT alone will not be enough. In order for the new system

to be supported in either area, proper editing equipment must be made available for it. The only reason analog open-reel recorders

continue to sell is because they permit easy


editing, on the same machine used for mak-

ing the master tape. The cost to a small record-ing studio of "going digital" is not just that of a pro PCM mastering system, which is formi-dable enough to begin with, but must also in-clude that of the editing equipment needed to assemble a presentable commercial product from the digital masters. The total can easily top $60,000—an investment that many strug-gling studios are just not prepared to make. It is lack of editing ease, not format incompati-

bility, which has hindered the $3000 PCM-F1's acceptance in pro and semipro circles. It is used, grudgingly, by many pros simply be-cause its sound quality is good enough to allow transfer, without appreciable quality loss, to open-reel analog tape, which allows for easy editing.

As it stands now, I believe the DAT system's major appeal will be to on-location film-sound engineers, who have relied for more than 20

years on the Nagra, battery-operated, portable, open-reel analog recorder made by a small Swiss firm called Kudelski, all the while curs-ing its limitations while appending all sorts of outboard add-ons to make it do what is re-quired of modern film-mastering recorders.

Sony has already shown prototypes of a por-

table pro DAT unit that does all of those things,

and more, in a single unit about half the size and weight of a comparably outfitted Nagra. The lack of editing equipment designed spe-cifically for DAT will be no deterrent to its use

by any major studio, because those that aren't already equipped with suitable equipment for their big studio PCM systems can readily afford to obtain it. As for the anticipated (by some) DAT revolu-

tion, I just do not see it happening. DAT has

enough going for it that it will find its niches in those areas where it is better suited for the

job than anything else, but those areas will, I feel, remain forever outside the mainstream.4 The DAT promoter's dream of a player in every car and on every jogger's belt is, 1 suspect, no more likely to come true than the music in-dustry's nightmare of every kid down the

block mass-producing DAT copies of the latest hit CD for all his DAT-equipped friends. Yes, DAT will catch on, but it will never catch fire. Of course, I could be wrong.

4 It is estimated that, despite all the hoopla, only 30,000 DAT recorder, were sold in 1987. nearly all in Japan.

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l'e. also uses Pioneer's exclusive Non-Switching" 'type Ill amplifier circuit to totally eliminate switching distortion. What's more, critical signal paths are : kept extraordinarily short for less electronic inter ference and cleaner sound. • When it comes to digital sound, there's no such thing as good vibrations. That's why the A-91D uses -a special anti-vibration honeycomb design in the chassis frame. In isolation barriers between elec-

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i•

LETTERS We regret that resources not permit us to reply individually to letters, particularly those requesting advice about particular equipment purchases. Were we to do this, a significant service charge would have to be assessed—and we don't have time to do it anyway! Although all are read and noted, only those of general interest are selected for publication.

Right? Editor: Let me confess that I have grown to love and respect your magazine, for many reasons:

1. The Cheapskate. Sam Tellig and Anthony H. Cordesman are, in my opinion, the most

sane people reviewing audio today. They recognize music reproduction as a hobby that must be in balance with other pursuits to make an entire life worth living. I purchased Spen-dor Sins and a Magnavox CD 1051 on Sam's recommendation, and I am quite pleased with them.

2. J. Gordon Holt. This guy has class. His liberalism in his relations with designers such as Bob Carver and in his comments on digital technology show a level of maturity that is fre-quently lacking in audio journalism. This hobby, which is supposed to put some fun into our lives, has in some quarters developed into a cult with demented ideological underpin-nings. JGH has stayed above the fray.

3. Larry Archibald. When he flags down reviewer comments to make some of his own, I see none of the "I am thy Guru, thy Golden Ear" high-horse crap that, intended or not, deprecates the opinions of others.

In short, I have not only learned tremen-dously from your magazine, but I have also come to develop a deep respect for your staff as people. I feel like I could be personal friends of any of them; and in fact consider all of you as such.

Ken Kallon Poughkeepsie, NY

But also wrong Editor: Stereopbile is one of the better audio maga-zines I have read. I find particularly interesting the letters, "Recommended Components," and the manufacturers' comments. I also like the way the reviewers describe the sounds they hear from the equipment. Vol.10 No.8 had a great cover, too. I should say, however, that I shall not be

subscribing. This is because I have no use for the magazine As I don't intend to buy a $5000 amplifier within the next 20 years—I don't even intend to get a $ 500 amp within the next 20 years—I have no use for reviews on such equipment. Even at the discounted price of $1.50 an issue, it is too much to pay to "keep up" with the latest developments in high-end equipment. I get Audio and Stereo Review to "keep up," in addition to which these two magazines report on equipment that are simi-lar to my own in price I don't think my choice of magazines would limit my choice of audio equipment in the future. So, when I begin to acquire interest in high-end equipment, I shall begin my subscription to Stereopbile.

Ki Suk Hahn West Covina, CA

Qualified applause Editor: First, why does Stereopbile use so many British writers? While I don't question their creden-tials, it seems to me that there must be American writers with equal qualifications.

Second, when will you review a Soundcrafts-men preamplifier? This company has been around for some time, and seems to make a quality product. Your record reviews still leave something to

be desired. Montesquieu said, "Those who wish to give us depth often give us length in-stead." Your reviews too often prove him right.

Notwithstanding the above, I applaud you for your intelligent, literate approach to the care and feeding of the stereophile Your blend of informative reporting, criticism, and educa-tion is better in most respects than that of any other magazine in the field. Keep up the good work.

Don Goodenow Springfield, IL

Appalled Editor: I've just recently started reading Stereopbile


again after an 11-year layoff. I'm appalled at the direction the magazine has taken. After reading all the rave reviews you publish of Apogee loudspeakers, I wonder when was the last time your writers listened to live music. In fact, I wonder if some of them ever have. And then, in ol.10 No.7, The Audio Cheapskate reviewed a 30W mono tube amplifier—only S4300 per

stereo pair! Is this a joke, a put-on of the maga-zine's readers, or what? I guess now that subscription money has little to do with whether the magazine lives anymore, the mag

doesn't care whether the poor reader is in a befuddled fog or pissed off. Gosh, and I used to think The Absolute Sound was strange.

Marlon Weaver Chattanooga, TN

Huh? Editor: Is Stereopbile now made in Japan?

Robert Mayberger Rosedale, NY

That tonearm comparison Editor:

As the co-designer of Eminent Technology's Tonearm 2 and a former vice-president of that firm, I was naturally interested in Philip Greenspun's and Charles Stromeyer's article

(V)l.10 No.8) comparing that arm with the new tonearm from Graham Engineering.

But the article raised many questions. Why was the designer/manufacturer of the

Graham arm invited to participate in the listen-ing test, while Eminent Technology's Bruce

Thigpen was not? This would have assured that the ET-2 had not been mishandled and was properly set up. Overall, Thigpen's pres-

ence would have resulted in a more equitable situation by allowing the test participants (in-cluding the authors) to meet the ET-2's designer personally, as they presumably met Robert Graham.

Why, in an ostensibly neutral test report, was four times more descriptive prose devoted to the Graham arm than to the ET-2? Why did

technical errors in the piece work only to the Graham arm's advantage and the ET-2's disad-vantage? For example, the Graham arm's bear-ing, a unipivot design which depends solely on gravity to hold it together, was said to have ". .. no play," while elsewhere the authors state that the ET-2 lacks a provision for adjusting azimuth.

And since in fact the ET-2 does have an azimuth adjustment, does their misstatement imply that the authors had not read Eminent Technology's installation manual? And if that's the case, then how—and by whom—was the

ET-2 actually installed and adjusted? Is it meaningful to base a listening com-

parison, which is concerned with the most subtle aspects of recorded music, on tape recordings? Recorders, which all will agree are

not perfect, will alter a signal from a cartridge and arm just as surely as they will alter a live signal from a microphone. And why was this article—which, when

submitted to another audio publication, was returned twice for rewriting and still deemed unacceptable—ever published at all, when it is in fact promoting a product so new that

Graham himself declared in his Manufacturer's Comment that he is waiting for delivery of component parts and that his first production

arms". . . should be available just when this issue of Stereopbile is mailed"? I trust that your readers will compare the

ET-2 with competing arms for themselves, and I believe that many will then decide that the lesser brightness and liveliness of the ET-2 signifies the same lack of coloration that has endeared it to its 4000-plus owners through-out the world.

Edison Price

New York, NY Edison Price apparently thinks that the pur-pose of Greenspun's article was to make a

definitive comparative evaluation between the ET-2 and the Graham arm. This was, in fact, not the purpose, which was to see if

double-blind evaluation techniques could correctly identify two quite different tone-arms. The result—that most of the audi-tioners preferred the Graham arm—does not to me read as a Stereophile endorsement of that product, which is not even available for purchase, to the best of my knowledge. We apologize for the mistaken allegation that the ET-2 fails to provide for azimuth adjustment, but it is clear that the additional description

of the Graham arm reflects its novelty; the ET-2 has been described most extensively in these pages. —LA

And again Editor:

I began reading the Tonearm Comparison ar-


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tide in the November Stereophile, and noted increasing interest and approbation. However,

upon getting into page 65, my gorge rose also. It is just this sort of misbegotten analysis and data presentation that has given subjective testing such a bad name in some circles. One

would not be surprised to see such stuff in Stereo Review (viz, the abysmally analyzed power-amplifier comparison), but in Stereo-phile . .? How very ghastly! (Cantab long a in "ghastly.") Stronger language initially, but I didn't know what expletives you can actually use in print.

First, the good parts: same music selections for each device, close together in time, presented similarly; no coercion to decide, near enough to double-blind as makes no difference.

Now, the omissions: no data as to which tests were done with the 4:5 set-up and which

were done with the 1:5 set-up, or whether it mattered; no data as to how many of the observers listened to each selection; no data as to how often and/or how many observers declined to decide; lastly, and worst, no data as to the degrees of difference noted, even

though the authors specifically stated that this

information was obtained. If this information was transformed into the degrees of con-

fidence used to weight the scoring, it is A) not so stated, and B) not justified so to do. The authors defend part of the study design

on the grounds that most of the listeners had no prior opportunity to listen to either of the two tonearms. That's fine—but is it then OK to include the designer of one of the tonearms as one of the purportedly unbiased observers? No bloody way

Still worse—the weighted rating scale,

loaded so that a high degree of confidence al-leged by one observer in one direction counts as much as the view of three less ebullient observers who decide in the other direction. This weighting leads only to a silly comparison

of the personalities of the observers; it de-serves very short shrift indeed. The very worst: not presenting the data as

obtained. By dissecting the published point scores in a "worst possible case the other way round" fashion (as detailed in the enclosed

table), and then counting the unweighted pro and con votes on the basis of one observer/

one vote, one can readily reach a conclusion rather different from that described in the text. As presented, 13 tests favored the Graham arm,

4 favored the Eminent Technology, and there were 2 draws. Analysis as above indicates that

there could have been 8 tests favoring the Emi-nent Technology arm, only 5 tests favoring the Graham arm, 4 draws, and 2 tests which could have gone either way. Only 3 of the 19 tests would have had the same result in both cases. So as presented, the results do not in any

way substantiate anything except that Stereo-phile readers have been unfortunately de-prived of a proper set of data and have been told of an evaluation that may or may not have come out as alleged. Neither I nor any other

reader knows what the data actually show— maybe the Graham tonearm was preferred— but the published results sure don't prove it.

However, they do prove that JA made a boo-boo when he let this get into print this way.

How about a new editorial rule for Stereophile? "Always present the raw data. Completely." Your mostly above-average, thoughtful readers deserve that much.

Will Hammond

North Hollywood, CA Mr Hammond 's and Mr Price's letters baie been sent to the authors of "The Essential Tonearm Test" for comment. —JA

Unipivots & the incompetent Press Editor:

I was impressed to read in Stereophile Vol.10 No.8 the comparison between the ET arm and the Graham Engineering arm, particularly as the listeners preferred the sound of the Graham unipivot. The problem with both arms, as with the SME V, is that they are over-engineered, far too expensive, and, most im-portant, sound no better than far cheaper arms. Long being an enthusiastic user of unipivots (currently I use a Mayware Formula IV), I know full well that the unipivot is best despite its usual downgrading by an incompe-tent Press. However, this long-winded article misses

the most important point: the reason why various types of tonearms sound different.

Unipivot arms always sound best with most

cartridges; the only exception is when the car-tridge used produces excess energy or mechanical vibrations, Koetsu, Linn, and Supex being the worst that I know of (doubt-less there are others). I venture to suggest that

although a Koetsu cartridge would not sound


very good in the Graham arm, Graham should not worry as these cartridges neither sound natural nor like master tapes. They do, how-ever, appear to sound "romantic" to some unqualified commentators. The same applies to the simply dreadful, overpriced, overen-gineered, but unnatural- and colored-sound-ing Audio Research SPI1 preamplifier.

Finally, the Press still continues to mislead the Public over CD, especially in amusing but very silly magazines like TAS and Stereo/Mile, whose unbelievable naivety amazes me. There

are, of course, many bad CD recordings, but a good one is superior to analog—for one thing, it is closer to the recording process. Vinyl may be subject to rapid deterioration, but is less so when played with a damped, vir-tually frictionless, unipivot tonearm.

Peter Stanley Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, England

PS: I was amused to see the worthless Alvin

Gold defending the equally worthless Ken Kessler in the same issue; both are failed hi-fi

salesmen.

All that glisters . . .

Editor: "All that glisters is not . . ."

Naturally, I read the hysterical diatribe by Alvin Gold in Vol.10 No.8 of Stereopbile. I

don't normally react to the pontifications of ex-shop assistants; even when he ascribes to me views and philosophies that are totally un-true. I have never even met the little lad, but psychic I am sure he is not. So please, ask him

to desist. I can just recognize his only talent, that of finding his way around a word proc-

essor; but prolixity is dangerously close. While I am about it, I may think what Gold

has written is 100% bovine feces. But there are young members in my family circle who do unwittingly pick up any magazine; so the

crude use of Anglo-Saxon vernacular is really without justification and does you and the

magazine no credit. Please exorcise it in future. Steeopbile's music content is still very good.

Reg Williamson Kidsgrove, Staffordshire, England

. . . is not Gold Editor: I would like to respond to Alvin Gold's November '87 piece about mechanistic and relativistic world views, primarily in order to

offer a proper perspective on the magazine Hi-Fi News & Record Review, which I edited for many years and which 1 think he slightly mis-

represented in a passing comment. Although there were indeed some shifts of emphasis after John Atkinson became editor in 1982, these hardly amounted to the dramatic con-version from objectivism to subjectivism which Alvin implies. The new outlook was

granted a steadily increasing voice in HFN/RR over a long period before JA took my place, and in many respects it could be said that John simply moved farther along a road already under serious exploration. Any magazine tends to reflect its editor's

outlook, and as 1 came from a cautious engineering background there was naturally

some bias in favor of objective measurements, which meant that I sometimes needed prod-ding in new directions. On the other hand, I always endeavored to be open-minded regard-ing what the human animal might be capable of learning. Time and again I pointed out that there are huge areas of unresearched ignorance in psycho-acoustics, and that we should never make up our minds in advance about what may be revealed in the difficult terrain of sub-jective testing. And if listeners can in fact detect supposedly unlikely differences between A and B (and that "if' is vital, demanding prop-erly controlled blind tests before rushing into print), then a truly scientific response is to ac-cept the observed facts and adjust the back-ground theory to accommodate them. There's nothing more unscientific than to declare that something can't be true simply because the ex-

isting world view doesn't allow for it. On this, I'm sure that Alvin and larcin full agreement.

So, lest it be thought that the magazine for which I used to be responsible remained stub-bornly resistant to new thoughts until my retirement, readers of Stereo/Mile should know

that HFN/RR was printing articles by Alvin Gold and other subjectivists long before my departure. It was the first English-language

paper to publish Jean Hiraga's pioneering (and at the time highly heretical) findings concern-ing the sound of passive components; nearly 25 years have passed since I first bemoaned the

inadequacies of Fourier analysis, etc., in ex-plaining the ear's response to music; and in one HFN/RR editorial I even suggested that

there might be a psychokirietic process at work whereby listeners unconsciously affect


the behavior of audio circuitry—hardly a recipe for mechanistic reductionism. The point I am making is that revolutions in

outlook are often more gradual than may ap-pear at first sight. Perhaps Alvin thought that

my rather severe sub-editing of his early ar-

ticles showed HFN/RR to be overburdened with measurement-mania, just as the more hidebound of my own generation have tended

to dismiss many subjectivist ideas as little more than woolly-minded obscurantism. Either view may carry a grain of truth, but neither is just or reasonable, and there is indeed now a need for some sort of rapprochement. How-ever, this should surely not be "between the forces of darkness and those of light;' as Alvin suggests; that would produce twilight all 'round. What we need is to bring together the

more open-minded from each camp, to shed light from both directions.

Finally, I know that Alvin doesn't want us to

take his Newton/Einstein metaphor too serious-

ly, but I do wish that everyone would remem-ber that while relativity (plus quantum mech-

anics) may have supplanted naive mechanism when it comes to cosmology or particle phy-sics, the Newtonian model still applies for most

practical purposes in the everyday world. The trouble is that hi-fi tends all too easily to transport itself out of this world into Platonic regions, with people always believing or dis-believing its higher manifestations according to temperament rather than evidence.

John Crabbe London, England

Perplexed Editor:

As a fairly new (about three years) inductee to the realm of the "high emir I have come to await each issue of Stereopbile with great ex-

pectation. Recently I have been following JA's reviews of speakers costing "under a grand." I am perplexed to find no mention of the Vandersteen lBs—in fact I haven't seen a review of them anywhere! Am I the only one who thinks these speakers are a definite best buy at $650, or am I off-base here? Please let me know. I listened to over 30 loudspeakers in nine months, including models from Spica, Thiel, KEF, B&W, Magnepan, Energy, Acoustat,

Celestion, Tammy, Spectrum, Dahlquist, etc., and while many were good, some even ex-

cellent, the value of the Vandersteens seemed

to overshadow each one. Martin Walsh

Long Beach, CA

Shocked Editor:

I was shocked to see that you totally ignored Thorens turntables in the turntable section of

"Recommended Components" (Vol.10 No.8). Paul Vergulak

Cicero, IL

A Grado misconception Editor:

Come on, let's get on the ball. The Grado car-tridge is not and never has been a moving-magnet design. B. A. Engholm

Carlsbad, CA

Pedantically speaking Mr Engbolm is cor-rect, as the moving element is an induced magnet rather than a permanent one. (Shure and Elac are, I believe, the only companies

that produce true moving-magnet designs.) But as its coils are nevertheless fixed in posi-tion, the generator used by Grado can be con-sidered as a variant of the moving-magnet principle rather than, as has been suggested

elsewhere, something more. akin to a moving-coil.

A MOSFET misconception Editor:

As a designer involved with tube/MOSFET hybrid amplifiers, I read with interest Mr. Olsher's description of Don J Cochran's Delta

Mode power amplifiers (Vol.10 No 8). A popu-lar misconception crept into the review when Mr. Olsher wrote that "the use of power MOS-FETs means that the output stage has a nega-

tive thermal coefficient, eliminating the poten-tial for thermal runaway common with bipolar

output stages." I hasten to add that Mr. Olsher really cannot be blamed for passing on this common misconception, but somewhere, some-how, MOSFEB gained a reputation for having a negative Tc (thermal coefficient), and it just

ain't so. For all practical purposes, MOSFElb

have a positive Tc, and are just as prone as bipolar transistors to thermal runaway.

For those puzzled about what this is all about, allow me to explain: a class-AB

amplifier's output stage is designed to operate with a certain amount of current flowing


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through it at all times. This so-called "bias cur-rent" is typically selected to be somewhere between none (class-B) and huge (class-A). Some devices (bipolar transistors) are nqtori-ous for having a tendency to draw more cur-

rent when they get warmer. This increase in current causes them to get even warmer, and therefore draw more current, which makes them get warmer and draw yet more current and so on until they self-destruct. A device that has this tendency is one that is described as having a positive thermal coefficient. In this case, "positive" doesn't mean good. This kind of suicidal behavior is known as thermal runaway.

What kind of Tc do power MOSFEU have? Taking, at random, a data sheet for the Inter-

national Rectifier IRF250 power MOSFET shows that MOSFETs also have a positive Tc.

Assume that the designer has selected a Drain Current of 0.2 Amperes as the target bias current. The MOSFET starts out at room temperature (25°C), so for this device a Gate-to-Source voltage of a little less than 4 volts must be applied to achieve the desired 0.2A. Now, because of this current, the device heats up. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that

the device reaches 150°C, and that the Gate-

to-Source voltage hasn't changed. As can be seen, the device will now be drawing about 3A, an increase of 15 times. This is a positive Tc in anybody's book. So how did MOSFETs acquire this reputa-

tion for having a negative Tc? Beats me! On ex-amination of the data sheet, it can be seen that the 25°C and 150°C lines intersect and cross, at about 25A, showing that at very high cur-

rents the MOSFET does operate with a negative Tc. And, in fact, nearly all MOSFETs show transfer characteristics similar to this: a positive Tc at low currents, crossing over to a negative Tc at higher currents. This thermal

crossover point (Tcx?) varies from part number to part number, and varies with device manu-facturer, with some showing a Tcx as low as 2

Amperes. But it should be noted that, with the exception of some very hefty class-A designs, a typical class-AB output stage will have bias currents well under 1 Ampere. So as far as the designer is concerned, he is dealing with positive Tc devices.

The other benefits of using MOSFETs as out-put devices (easy to drive at medium frequen-cies, tube-like output characteristics, etc.) are

real and apparent, but negative Tc is not one of them. And, by gum, I think it is high time somebody stepped forward and said so.

J. Michael Elliott, President

Counterpoint Electronic Systems, Inc.

It would seem from the above that one of the

consequences of MOSFET behavior is tbat, above their "Tcx" point, they will draw less current, and the thermal runaway will stop. The question then becomes whether that point, 25A in the example, is sufficient to fry the

device or its neighbors in the amplifier—LA

Idiosyncratic subjectivity Editor:

I am a newcomer to the fascinating, esoteric, and totally liberating world of audio perfec-tion. Where else could one find such carefree disregard for practical considerations? But this should not mean idiosyncratic subjectivity.

The review of the Audio Research SP9 pre-amplifier in the November issue of Stereapialle seems an anomaly. It raises serious questions of whether your reviews can be trusted. In

light of Terry Dom's manufacturer's comment, I am puzzled why you published your review

at all. JA's and JGH's negative findings do not make sense, considering that the SP9 works

well for so many people—it is hard to believe that there are 1000 audiophiles who cannot tell "hard, rough, thin, and both spatially and dynamically compressed" sound from warm, round, full, and expanded sound.

Dick Olsher's review of interconnects earlier in 1987 was very interesting to me as I recently began testing these. In reviewing individual cables, DO did not mention what kind of music he was listening to, so here was my sur-

prise. I tried Aural Symphonies As-One which sounded very nice indeed. However, the MIT-330 was spectacular in providing natural

warmth for the sound of orchestra, strings, and choral music. The low bass was very beautiful and very loving. Alas, not so for solo piano! The piano came out harsh and shrill in the mid/upper range, and with a ringing sound that was both unpleasant and unnatural. Perhaps I'll have to set up two parallel systems that will differ only in the brand of intercon-nects. Perhaps future reviews of interconnects should include "the critical piano test."

Michael M. Piechowski Washburn, WI


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More on the SP9 Editor:

I bought an Audio Research SP9 preamplifier before reading your report in Stereopbile's November issue (Vol.10 No.8). After listening to the unit in the dealer's store, I took it home and put it in my system. After a couple of days, concluded that I could live with the sound

and bought one. However, the unit I received in a sealed box from the factory sounded dif-ferent from the unit I had checked out. The

sound was a bit smoother, a little warmer, and more open than the first unit; I liked this one bet ter.

But after about two months of use, the

sound changed. String music became hard and shrill, with less openness and depth.

I returned the unit to ARC and have now gotten it back. I checked it out and the unit sounds a little smoother, but the rest of the sound is about the same.

According to the repair order ARC sent me, they put in "compatibility Mod. Board and up-date," whatever that means. 1 am using the SP9 with the Counterpoint

SA-20 amplifier and PS Audio CD-1A player, with Interlink Reference A cables used be-tween every unit.

Anthony Mattina Staten Island, NY

And more Editor: Please cancel my subscription to Stereopbile, the main reason being J. Gordon Holt's review of the Audio Research SP9 preamplifier in

Vol.10 No.8, along with John Aticinson's added few words. I feel that these two men's days of reviewing are numbered. The adjectives used to describe the sound of the SP9 in the second paragraph on p.113 are the exact opposite of what my wife, a friend of ours, and myself heard. (There was also no crosstalk between

line-level inputs.) When you read a review that is so entirely different from what you hear, then it is time to move on to more truthful SOUltes.

I've talked with five different dealers about this review. (Two were not ARC dealers, the

other three were.) All five said that the review was purely political—I'd say it was purely bull. It is almost as if JGH and JA had a grudge against the Audio Research Corporation. One final thing: Yes, I did compare the SP9

with other preamplifiers, all costing between

$995 and $3250. And yes, the SP9 beat them all by hundreds of miles in overall sound. And yes, I do own one. As a matter of fact, I own two, one in my living room and one in my den Name and Address Withheld On Request

"Lies . ." Editor: I would like to comment on several points regarding your review of the Audio Research

Corporation SP9 preamplifier. First, the blind comparisons of the SP9 vs

the SPI 1 in England must be interpreted with caution. In four independent trials with a prob-ability of 1:2 for guessing correctly on each, the likelihood of a run of four successes is 1:16; if four misidentifications are also interpreted as meaningful, the probability of either of

these outcomes occurring purely by chance is 1:8. This is not sufficient to reject the null hypothesis that JGH could not distinguish be-tween the two preamplifiers under these conditions.

Of course, ifJGH consistently misidentified the two components over sufficiently many trials, one would conclude that he heard a difference—and, based on his strongly stated judgments about the characteristic sounds of

the SP9 and SP! I, that he actually preferred the SP9 in the context of the Absolute Sounds

system and room. This result might be even more distressing to Audio Research Corpora-tion—but would underscore the important

role of component interactions, room com-patibility, and the subjective element in com-paring one aural perspective to another.

Let me pass on my own experience as an owner of the SP9. When first added to a system including the Meridian 207 CD player, SOTA Sapphire III/Sumiko FT III/Virtuoso Boron record-playing system, Krell KSA 100 Mk.II, Apogee Duetta II loudspeaker, Stax Lambda pro headphones, and FMS Blue III interconnects, the SP9 contributed brightness, hardness, constricted dynamics and depth. This effect persisted during at least one week of regular use. The sound was so unpleasant that I chose to employ the 207 as my high-level preamp, driving the power amp through its variable outputs; only the phono stage of the SP9 was used, via the tape outputs, to feed the line input of the 207.

Approximately two months later, the Med-


dian developed mechanical problems which required temporary substitution of another CD player and the use of the SP9 as a full preampli-fier. The sound was then strikingly different: the SP9 had acquired a distinct warmth, smoothness, and palpable three-dimension-ality reminiscent of other ARC components. When the 207 returned, I quickly compared the CD variable outputs to the CD/SP9 hookups and strongly preferred the sound passed through the SP9. I have repeated this comparison on several occasions and always reached the same conclusion. Records have, if anything, more of the desirable aural qualities.

This sequence of events in the setting of ex-

treme differences in critical response to the SP9 makes one suspect a need for extensive burn-in before it achieves optimal perfor-mance. Roger Modjeski's article in Vol.10 No.8

about tube component interactions raises another possibility: that the cascode design of the SP9 makes it susceptible to unavoidable variations in its component 6DJ8s.

David Bear, MD Nashville, TN

".• . Damned Lies ..." Editor: I'm delighted to see that after 20 years, you have a Musician in Residence. After reading JAs analysis of the blind listening test comparing

the Audio Research SP9 and SPII(Vol.10 No.8, p.I16), 1 suggest that a Statistician in Residence also be added to your staff. JA's analysis sug-gests that he may have been listening to good music when he should have been attending mathematics classes. The two listening tests are treated as in-

dependent events. This could be valid—JGH and JA do have different ears. This also could be invalid—if JGH and JA discussed what they heard as they were listening, the trials are not independent. But for lack of any information, let's accept the assumption of independence. A score of four correct identifications out

of four trials surely is significant. I assume that JA would claim that three correct identifica-

tions out of four trials is significant. (The ad-

vice of a Statistician in Residence could have prevented the need to make assumptions.) Zero out of four is claimed to be as significant as four out of four—this is correct, as the

statistics are being used to imply an audible dif-

ference between the two preamps rather than

to show the ability to identify which is which. Similarly, one out of four is as significant as three out of four. Thus, two out of four is the only score that does not suggest an audible

difference. Of the 2x2x2x2 possible outcomes of four

trials, six have two correct identifications. Thus, given two identical preamps and a single test of four trials, the statistics would imply the

preamps sound the same 6:16, or 38% of the time, and appear to sound different 10:16, or 62% of the time. Comparing two identical preamps by two

independent listening tests of four trials each, the results will imply no audible difference in 38%x38% or 14% of the time, hence imply an audible difference 86% of the time. "Cer-tainly, it is incontrovertible that a difference was heard" is a stronger statement than the statistics justify.

If we take the stricter assumption that only all-right or all-wrong tests show significant differences, then 2:16 or 12% of the time, iden-tical preamps will have results that imply audi-ble differences. For two independent tests, at least one of the tests would imply audible dif-ferences 23% of the time.

If we take the strictest assumption that four correct identifications in four trials is the only

significant result, then a four-trial test of two identical preamps will imply a difference 1:16, or 6% of the time. For two independent tests, at least one will imply an audible difference 12% of the time. Thus, even with the strictest interpretation available, the word "incon-

trovertible" could not be justified. As noted above, two tests of four trials each

will show an audible difference 62% of the time for identical preamps, but the confidence that can be placed in such is quite limited. Perhaps your Statistician in Residence would be able to explain "confidence intervals," which give a measure of just how much con-fidence can be placed in a statistical implication.

Kevin Willoughby Framingham, MA

66. • . and Statistics" Editor: I just received the first issue of Stereophile of-fered to me as a special promotion, and I am writing to comment upon a matter of great concern. I refer to your critique of the Audio


Research SP9 preamplifier and your defensive reaction to the results of the ad hoc "blind" test performed under duress. As a vision researcher and psychophysicist, I deplore your interpretation of the results, and the claims you

make regarding statistics. In this test, two observers were required to

identify correctly two devices, each presented twice. The observer could on any trial expect to guess correctly 50% of the time. The prob-ability of an individual guessing all four presenta-tions correctly is therefore one in 16 (one half to the fourth power). The same is true for guessing all four incorrectly. Thus your com-ment that J. Gordon Holt's performance was extremely unlikely is false. The real problem with your analysis is the

criterion for reliable detection of real dif-ferences: you state that a perfect inverse cor-relation from one of two observers proves that there are real differences between the devices. Since you were satisfied that one observer guessed wrong every time, it is reasonable to assume that you would have been even hap-pier had he guessed right every time. This doubles the probability of the result to one in eight. Because two observers participated, the probability that one or the other would guess all right or all wrong is double this, or one in four. Clearly we must charitably assume the results are due to chance; otherwise, we must assume that your hypothesis that the SPI 1 is better than the SP9 is false because of the negative correlation.

Your misguided notions of statistical validity are not what concern me most, however. In-stead, it is your view that "blind" testing is of little value that astounded me. You apparently fail to realize that any subjective evaluation of stereo components is essentially a perceptual experiment; only the methodologies vary. The type you prefer is suprathreshold, and quali-tative in nature. This approach is of course essential in art; to judge music otherwise would be meaningless. But you are evaluating products, not music A tempting model for this sort of experiment is the evaluation of wines. Descriptors such as body, sweetness, acidity, and others have some generally acknowledged sensory correlates, and numerical scales can even be applied to describe how sweet, how acidic. This model fails for audio, though, because the taste of wine is the experience in-tended by the vintner. Audio equipment

reproduces music; it should be judged as er-satz wine.

Sensory substitutes can be judged in two ways: testing substitutes vs the original, or testing substitutes vs each other. Your preferred method is the former: you judge reproduced sound vs your memory of what the sound should be.

However, your readers may be interested in relative differences, which require the latter method. The easiest way to design an accurate and reliable test of relative differences is to use a two-alternative, forced-choice method; a "blind" A/B test is a rather weak variant of this. Contrary to your belief that "proving anything from blind testing is extremely hard," it is ac-tually easy to test hypotheses this way if you know what you are doing. The most important point that I can make

is that whether you judge the absolute sound of the device, or the relative sound of two devices, you must understand that you are per-forming an experiment. You must control stimulus and subject parameters. You seem to have a grasp of the stimulus; efforts have been made to ensure similarity of presentation, although this is of course difficult for situations where physics gets in the way, as in the case of loudspeaker-room interactions. However, you have not allowed for significant variations in listener performance. The most significant of these is state of adaptation; we do not know if your listener has previously been sitting quietly at home, driving on noisy streets, or listening to music for several hours. Other prob-lems include subject age and experience. The results of poorly designed tests using quali-tative descriptions are so strongly influenced by uncontrolled factors that the results are dubious at best. Because of this, it is actually easier to design tests of relative differences, using a forced choice of better or worse. Of course, the criterion of quality must be that of sound reproduction, so subjects must not be allowed to detect differences based upon equipment appearance or reputation; hence the tests must be "blind." How rigorous need you be? Had you tried

eight presentations instead of four, there would only have been one chance in 64 of one observer achieving a perfect positive or negative correlation by chance You could just as easily have presented more trials. Still, this would not have been a good test for two

StereOphile, February 1988 23

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reasons. First, stimulus parameters were not controlled. JGH thought the unfamiliar en-

vironment caused his poor performance, even

though prior to the test your team thought that informal listening demonstrated the differ-ences you claimed. Second, subject para-

meters were not controlled because, as you ad-mitted, the observers had "partied a bit the

night before." Fatigue and hangover definitely

affect performance. Do they ever affect others

of your evaluations? You may argue that my criticism is unfair because you did not set up

the test. A well-designed test would succeed regardless of the identity of the examiner. I

suggest for relative-difference evaluation that

you consult an experimental psychologist and

devise a consistent test to be used for all

devices of a given class. This would cost you some time and money, but your readers pay

for accurate information. The promo for your magazine offered the

first copy with no obligation. Please cancel my

subscription.

Michael A. Morris, OD

Oak Brook, IL

JA answers these letters in more detail, but I

must say that the objections I raised at the time to the "blind A/B testing" we were alleged to ham carried out in London, are only con-firmed.

Consider: for 26 years now, J. Gordon Holt books up components and listens to them, and

goes to great extremes to separate out the

behavior of those components from that of his

reference system. He describes what he hears.

For 26 years people have read what be says,

no doubt employing several grains of salt as

they see fit, based on their prior experience

of bis reviews. Their reaction to what be

writes must not be too bad, because they keep buying the magazine be writes. Not once in

this entire time is a successful or meaningful

allegation made with respect to his integrity

or with respect to any political alignments be

may have.

Now, after having "proved" his lack of malice for ARC by virtually drooling over

their SP!! (and subsequently by calling their

M300 the best amplifier he's ever heard), JGH is made out to be "political" and of "having

a grudge against Audio Research Corpora-

tion." And, then, to add insult to injury, we are taken to task for minimizing the impor-

tance of a double-blind test we didn't set up, didn't want to take, and don't believe in

anyway! Tbis is unjust! All I can say is that it's comforting to have the pages of a maga-zine in which to discuss it all, and express my

outrage. —LA

Taking the major points made above, in response to the first letter 1 must point out that

politics never enter into a review published

in Stereophile. All our writers are instructed to honestly report on what they hear regard-less of the consequences. lb do otherwise—for

example, to have given the SP9 a good review

because of ARC's track record, or the positive

reports from other reviewers, or the contrary

opinion of the manufacturer and ARC dealers, despite the evidence of our own

ears—is not only dishonest, it lets Stereo-

phile's readers down. They do not buy the

magazine to read what we think we ought

to have beard; nor do they buy the magazine to bear us deafly echo the sentiments of other

reviewers (unless we agree with them, of

course); they need to know what we actually did bear And as to whether JGH and I have

a grudge against Audio Research, I would

point out that I have been a happy user of Audio Research products for five years, cur-

rently owning an SPIO Mk. II preamplifier,

whileJGH gave the company's M300 power amplifier a vet), positive review in Ibl.10 Na9.

To reassure Mr Willoughby, there was no

communication of any kind between JGH and

myself during the blind test. With hindsight,

I do agree that my use of the word "incon-trovertible" was somewhat heavy-banded.

Our combined scoring of 2 out of 8 could be due to chance, while JGH's individual scor-

ing of 0 out of 4 identifications is not signifi-

cant to the 95% level demanded by statisti-

cians. As I indicated, it is possible to analyze the results presented on p.116 of Vot 10 Na 8,

on a basis of identifying when an unknown preamplifier was the same as or different

from the previous one. If you lumpJGH's and

my results together you get the following: out

of six potential changes of unknown, we cor-

rectly identified five cbanges, JGH scoring 3

out of 3. Though still not "incontrovertible," under the adverse conditions of the test— remember that this was sprung on us at almost no notice—this led to my positive feel-

ings of identification.


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IfIGH had continued with the test, and con-

tinued to misidentify the preamplifiers for

another four trials, then "incontrovertible"

would bave been undoubtedly the appro-priate word to use. Yes, I would have liked

to carry out more trials. However as anyone

who has taken part in blind equipment testing will agree, the listeners ,get fatigued very

quickly. To have continued with the testing at

another time was not possible considering the

fact that the test was not under our control,

and the venue was a public hi-fi show on the very last day

And one thing that discussion of the results

of this blind test—hurriedly organized by a representative of Audio Research—does not

alter isJGH's and my original findings: that our (early) SP9 sample failed to achieve the

musical performance required for it to be

recommended, regardless of politics. In my opinion, Audio Research produced an inex-

pensive derivative of the SPI1 by keeping the

superb technical performance but compromis-

ing the sound quality, endowing it with a more forward, less universally gratifying

balance. My preference would have been to

have kept as much as possible of the SPI! 's

sound quality but to have compromised the

technical performance—the noise floor on the phono inputs, say—in order to ham produced

a true hybrid successor to the always musical, all-tube SP8.•

The politics of reviews Editor:

Val° No.8, in particular Alvin Gold's column

and the Audio Research SP9 review, raised

some questions that I hope you can answer. Mr. Gold presented the "political" nature of

reviewing and the audio business. During his

discussion of personalities, philosophies, and

priorities, I began to focus on the latter, es-

pecially in regard to how a piece of equip-ment gets to be reviewed. What procedures

are involved? And, how are good relations maintained if a subsequent review of another product by that company is not favorable? The

SP9 is a case in point. Also, how persistent is

Stereophile with companies/marketing agen-cies that are reluctant to grant reviews, par-

ticularly when they have a highly regarded piece of equipment?

I read the Versa Dynamics review with this

in mind. The extremely high praise Mr. Holt

gave it started me wondering about another

product—the Well-Tempered Table. It has received substantial praise in previous issues and in other magazines, in one case being rated

equal or better than the Goldrnund Reference. Yet there has not been a review in Stereophile. Why not?

The case for one is strong, I believe. JAR did

a long and laudatory review of the 'table, though I notice Mr. Moncrieff is not highly

regarded at Stereophile (witness the SP9 review). Both the Audio Cheapskate and Ken

Kessler praised the WTT in their reports from

the WCES (Von() No.2). If interest in the 'table was not high at Stereophile, why did Mr. Holt interview William Firebaugh? The interview

was rather "soft," leaning toward the descrip-

tive rather than analytical. Why? This is not what I've come to expect from Mr. Holt. Lastly,

Mr. Firebaugh stated that he needed to get 1000

'tables out PDQ. This seems an extraordinary

number for a product that had only been on

the market about eight months at the time and cost 51500.

What steps has Stereophile taken? Have you been offered a 'table, and under what, if any,

conditions? How does Transparent Audio

Marketing fit in? Greg Bergin

South Lyon, MI

I reiterate that our reviews accurately reflect

the result of our own auditioning The fact that J. Peter Moncrieff gate the Audio Research

SP9 an enthusiastic review bad no bearing either on our own findings, nor on Stereo-

phile's opinion of him as a co-worker in the

field. I have the highest regard for Mr Mon-

crieff both as a listener and as a writer, and

on many products be and Stereophile have

been in agreement—the Spica TC- 50 (more or less). MIT speaker cable, and Audio Re-

search SPI I, for example.

Regarding the »11-Tempered 7Iirntable, we

are informed that Mr Moncrieff worked as a

consultant on the final development of the product. The publication of his review in January 1987, based on his extensive experi-

ence of the various prototypes that passed

through bis hands, therefore preceded

availability by a significant period. After in-

itially trying to produce the WTT himself (but

delivering only 80-100 in the period from November 1986 to June 1987), Bill Firebaugh

made an arrangement with Transparent


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Tbrntables & arms Editor:

I just got done reading JGH's review of the Versa Dynamics 2.0 turntable/arm in Vol.10 No.8.

Judging from his comments, the 2.0 must be an excellent turntable system. In order to put its performance in perspective, I suggest you

listen again after you've refitted your SOTA Star as follows: SME V, SOTA Reflex Clamp (don't use the rubber washer), replace the stock feet

with threaded TipToes or Counterfeet, and mount the Von an aluminum armboard. By handicapping your SCYM performance

with a "Class B" arm like the VI/ell-Tempered, you simply cannot be sure that the Versa

Dynamics 2.0 is the "best 'table/arm unit in the world" (emphasis added). With the digital juggernaut chewing at our

heels, I think it's very important for Stereophile

to identify the record-playing combinations which take full advantage of the LP format. This obviously makes reviewing and rating a more complex process, but it will provide the

audio consumer with better information on which 'table/arm combos work best. I had a chance to see and hear the 2.0 at

your High-End Hi-Fi Show in NYC. It looked great, but unfortunately it was being demon-strated with what I felt to be one of the worst-sounding systems (CSAs Cello/Duntech combo) at the show. Its virtuosity must have been

hidden by the mendacious nature of all those transistor gain stages. It did manage to sound better than the "spiced-up" CDs that Cello

used (Mark Levinson described Cello's Palette as an "audio spice rack"). I admire Versa for taking a system approach

with the 2.0, but I wonder if this costly, com-plex arrangement really outperforms the best pivoted arm combinations. Your review only

shows that you've been listening to a poorly matched 'table/arm combination.

Dan Evert No address supplied

Turntables Again Editor:

As John Atkinson commented in the intro-duction to his interview with Pierre Lurne in the December 1987 issue (Vol.10 No.9) of Stereophile, it is indeed ironic that, with the

acceptance of CD over the last two years, there has been a veritable flood of developments in vinyl record front-end equipment: not only new designs of turntables, arms, and car-

tridges, but also significant versions of existing units. As an owner of many LP records, I ap-prove of this upsurge in front-end capability, which hopefully will provide me, and others of like mind, with the ability to reproduce sound at home even closer to the original. My hi-fi equipment purchases have always

been made with the aim of getting as close as possible to the original sound. This task has been made easier for me because of my in-terest in recording live concerts—using Calrec microphones and a Revox B77 open-reel recorder to get my wife's concerts on tape. These tapes then provide the basis for my own comparative tests on amplifiers and speakers. In fact, I used recent tapes of my wife's con-

certs to select my current amplifier/speaker combination in 1986.

So I wondered how the accuracy of sound

reproduction had improved with this latest crop of turntable/arm/cartridge developments. I had read about a groove isolation test developed by J. Peter Moncrieff of Interna-tional Audio Review that had shown (in blind listening evaluations) a close correlation to ac-curacy of sound reproduction. As I knew that Hi-Fi Choice gave disc impulse test graphs (a

la Moncrieff) in their publication, I purchased their issue #48 to discover their conclusions.

For those of you not aware of Peter Mon-crieffs work, a turntable that does well on the disc impulse test produces sound when play-ing a vinyl record that is closer to that of the master tape ibmtables that do not fare so well on this test sound artificially livelier, are louder, brighter, with more bass, but the sound is smeared with the blurring of music transients. For anyone wishing to improve the fidelity of his record front-end equipment, the disc im-


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pulse test is a most significant guide to the merits of competing turntables. I was appalled to read in Hi-Fi Choice that

the measurements were used only to "help weed out the wallies" and provide back-up

evidence for listening findings. Auditioning was to be the final arbiter. Then I read that listening tests were performed with compari-sons made, not with master tape, but with specific reference turntables recognized as

good-sounding but certainly not accurate. To crown it all, I then found to my great an-noyance that the test graphs for the reference Linn.Sondek turntable and SME V arm were not even included, but could only be found in a previous edition. I consider that to be the

height of discourtesy, and makes me suspect that the editor has something to hide.

In my view, the only fair way of evaluating vinyl record front-end equipment is to use ac-curately revealing amplifier and speakers, then compare the sound when playing a record to that of the master tape used to make that

record. Competing front ends can then be rated on the basis of which gets closest to the sound from the master tape. Performing listen-ing tests in this way will avoid any accusations

of bias that can occur when specific reference turntables are used.

Surely record manufacturers such as EMI, Decca, Linn, etc. could provide reviewers and

testers with quality reference records and master tapes for making valid, accurate com-parisons. After all, it must be in their own

interests to improve the quality of sound that can be obtained from vinyl records for the continuing sale of records in the future.

Let me end this piece with a request to all reviewers/testers to ensure that their pro-cedures and conclusions help the hi-fi enthu-siast toward the aim of improved fidelity when he makes his equipment purchases. My own "journey to the truth" has led me via Leak, Yamaha, Lentek, Naim, and Linn equip-ment to my current set-up of Townshend Rock /Excalibur/Koetsu Black with Croft

amplification and Snell lypeJ II speakers. Now, I will be looking for further developments from speaker manufacturers to significantly

reduce the coloration from speaker cabinets, perhaps using the lessons of the Moncrieff impulse test.

Anthony C. Seaford Fareham, Hams, England

Keeping Copycode alive Editor:

Copycode has the potential to totally ruin that goal for which we are all striving: high-fidelity audio reproduction.

This system, which threatens to plague all prerecorded CDs, LPs, and cassettes, takes a

narrow but extremely deep notch out of the audible spectrum at around 3840Hz. Although CBS makes the claim that the system has no audible effects because the notch is centered between the fundamentals of two notes (I

believe it is between a B and a B flat), it is clear that some very important facts have been glossed over. For example: assuming that all recordings are perfectly in tune (a poor assump-tion at best), there still is going to be a rather destructive effect on the harmonics of notes below 1920Hz. Also, "blue notes," commonly used in jazz, blues, and their derivatives, will

suffer greatly from this notch. Also, the system puts the notch in the worst

of all possible locations in the audible spec-trum, between 2kHz and 4kHz; the area where

the ear is most sensitive to sound. This all said, it would even be appropriate

to call the system obsolete by today's stan-ards. The bulk of the system was developed in the late '70s, and it follows that there simply has to be a better way of copycoding in 1987. There is little reason why it has to be done in

the analog domain in the first place. Digital subcodes would work more effectively, and would not have the all-too-audible side effects of the CBS system.

Reports have it that CBS has started en-coding their CDs with this horrible system, and I would urge anyone who has any regard

for high fidelity whatsoever to not purchase CDs from CBS or any other company riding the CBS bandwagon. If by some terrible act of fate this Copycode legislation does pass, I would encourage people to buy from small, perfectionist-oriented labels who will not be encoding their material. This way, if enough people participate, we might be able to get the message across to the "Big Boys" that we will not put up with this type of thing. What we need is some innovative thinking

to do away with the problems of home taping, not to permanently wound the pursuit of high fidelity. Don't let Copycode ruin your listening

pleasure! James F. Ellis Bellevue, WA


mT "Martin-Logan

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W hen most audio man-ufacturers speak of "technology," it's

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INDUSTRY

BIM

USA: Peter W. Mitchell The copy-protection debate has created the impression that if DAT recorders are sold with-

out Copycode scanners, everyone could start churning out perfect digital copies of CDs. But in fact the design of DAT already incorporates two basic obstacles to digital CD piracy: copy-

protect flags and incompatible sampling. Thus the proposed imposition of Copycode scannera in DAT recorders would seem to be a super-fluous third level of protection. The coding standard for the Compact Disc,

established in 1981, provides for an optional copy-protect "flag" bit in the digital data

stream. From the outset the design of DAT has included a circuit that automatically inhibits recording if an incoming digital signal contains this flag bit. This, the designers presumed, would provide ample protection against ama-teur piracy of copyrighted recordings.

Originally the digital sampling rate of DAT was set at 44 kHz, like CD, and digital outputs were added to CD players in order to facilitate direct digital taping of any CDs produced without copy-protect flags. But two years ago an international agreement set 48kHz as the standard for professional digital recording, and DAT manufacturers were persuaded—reluc-tantly—to adopt the higher rate in order to

provide a second level of protection against home copying of CDs. DAT recorders designed for professional use can record at either 48 or 44kHz (so that they can be used to make master tapes for CD production), but consumer DATs

33

are locked out of 44kHz recording. They can-not record the digital code from a CD even if the copy-flag protection is somehow bypassed or defeated. This, optimists thought, would take care of any remaining piracy worries among American record-company executives. Why didn't it? The enthusiasm of DAT pro-

ponents played directly into the paranoia and greed of the big cheeses at the RIAA (the Re-cording Industry Association of America). Like the first ads for the CD, which claimed that it would provide "pure and perfect sound for-ever," early DAT publicity emphasized that it would make flawlessly exact copies of every sound. If that's true, the RIAA argued, digital copying is not the only threat; the DAT could make an exact copy of a CD through its analog inputs, and each DAT tape could then serve as the source of endless digital clones. As a prac-tical matter, the first two levels of copy-pro-tection might as well not exist. Thus the ground was paved for the entry of the CBS "magic bullet" —the 3.8kHz notch filter and detector that promise to block analog copying from CD to DAT (and, eventually, copying of recordings in any medium). Of course, people who care enough about

sound quality to pay S2(XX) for a tape recorder won't be satisfied with analog copying as long as the possibility of digital dubbing is tantaliz-ingly just out of reach. In Japan the DAT, even without the mythical Copycode chip, is viewed as a crippled product because of its inability to make digital-to-digital CD dubs. When Sony bought CBS Records in Novem-

ber,' the audio industry breathed a collective sigh of relief because of the widespread as-sumption that the new owners would force CBS to drop its advocacy of Copycode notch-filtering. But that probably won't happen right

away; Sony announced its intention to leave policy-making in the hands of current CBS Records executives, at least for now.

Regardless of the outcome of the Copycode

battle, it seems clear that DAT is not going to become the dominant home taping medium any time soon. The CD may supplant the LP, hut DAT won't replace the mass-market analog cassette; it is simply too expensive and is likely to remain so for the forseeable future. It would

I Sony paid 52 billion for CBS Records. who made an operat-ing profit of just over 5162 million on a g,nws it-venue of nearly 51.5 billion in 1986. more than any other record company worldwide.

be more accurate to view DAT as the logical successor to the Revox (and other) 2-track open-reel stereo tape recorders that have long been the standard for semi-professional record-ing, basement studios, and on-location record-ing of concerts for delayed radio broadcast. Recognizing this potential, Sony introduced

two "professional" DAT recorders at Novem-ber's AES convention—a $5000 AC-powered model and a $7000 portable. Pro DATs have also been announced by Fostex and Nakamichi.

Meanwhile, since DAT seems destined to be a slow-growth medium, developers are explor-ing other uses for the technology, and there

is much enthusiasm for the idea that a DAT with more robust error-correction would be a splendid storage medium for computer pro-

grams and data. Its capacity (over 1000 mega-bytes) would be double that of the CD-ROM,

and it would be much less expensive than the user-recordable optical discs now being developed.

Why digital filtering? Most new CD players employ so-called "over-sampling" (a misnomer that I'll discuss some other time) and digital filtering, in place of the multi-pole analog "brick wall" filters that were commonplace in earlier designs. Manufac-turers have been converting to digital filters in all but the cheapest players, not because they have been proven unequivocally to sound bet-

ter, but because they are now price-compe-titive with analog filters—and they measure better, in both amplitude and phase response.

Everyone has focused on the dramatic im-

provement in phase response, but amplitude response (le, "frequency response") accounts

for audible differences, too. A nine-pole analog brick-wall filter is a complex nest of more than a dozen resistors, capacitors, and coil inductors, each of which must have precisely the correct

value if the filter is to have the desired res-ponse. But mass-produced electronic com-ponents don't usually have exact values; if you

look at the components hanging in plastic blister packs in your local Radio Shack, you'll find that ordinary resistors and capacitors are guaranteed only to be within 5 or 10 percent of their nominal values. A 1000 ohm 5% -tolerance resistor is unlikely to measure

10(X) ohms, but it will be somewhere between 950 and 1050 ohms.

Expensive parts have tolerances of one to


two percent, but that still may not be good enough. As a general rule of thumb in filter design, a 1% error in the value of a part will typically produce a frequency-response error of about 0.1dB. If ten components in a filter all happen to err in the same direction, the resulting deviations could add up to 1.0dB or more. Usually the parts tolerances won't all err in the same direction, and some errors will cancel others out; but the net error is still likely to be 0.3dB or more.

That may not seem like much, but it is audi-

ble. If one CD player is 0.3dB up in the top oc-tave and another player is 0.3dB down, the resulting 0.6dB difference will be obvious even to a tin-eared listener like me. Since the

largest filter errors occur above 10kHz, many listeners will hear the difference not as a change

in timbre but as an apparent difference in airi-ness, depth, transient attack, or "sweetness."

Much ink has been spilled in descriptions of alleged refinements in CD-player technology, but in the comparisons that I have been a party to, the most consistently audible differences have been correlated with easily measured dif-ferences in high-frequency response. I'm not suggesting that other differences don't exist,

but that this factor shouldn't be dismissed lightly. The simple fact is that, until very re-cently, very few CD players have provided dead-flat response.

Early digital filters were no flatter than their

analog counterparts, but with recent advances both in IC manufacturing and in the power of the computer programs used to calculate their designs, new digital filters can consistently pro-duce the desired response within 0.1dB—and since digital filters operate by signal cancella-tion rather than by voltage division, their re-sponse is not affected by parts tolerances.

The main advantage for the manufacturer is that the filter stage becomes a simple plug-in part, eliminating the need to measure indivi-dually the response of every filter on the pro-duction line and discard those with excessively large errors. Actually this is a slight oversimpli-fication of the situation, since the digital filter is followed by a gentle analog filter that sup-presses remaining "image" signals around 88

or 176kHz. But the latest digital filters have a precision of 0.01dB, and the mild output filter can easily be controlled within 0.1dB. Of course that's not what sales brochures

tell you. The great advertised virtue of the

digitál filter is that it is relatively phase-linear,

providing symmetrical reproduction of pulses, squarewaves, and other complex. waveforms.

Analog brick-wall filters, by contrast, exhibit large phase shifts at high frequencies. Strictly speaking, what counts is not the phase shift per se, but the non-linear rate at which it

changes with frequency. The practical conse-quence is "group delay": the highest-frequency overtones of a complex signal may emerge from the CD player as much as 0.1 millisecond later than the fundamental and lower-frequency harmonics.

More about this next time. In the meantime, your homework assignment is to think about

this question: Since most recordings already contain large group delays created by the filters in professional digital recorders, does digital filtering in the CD player provide any audible benefit? And if group delay is audible, when

will the pros start using phase-linear filters?

UK: Ken Kessler Press releases with headings like "Institute of Acoustics" impress the hell out of me, whether or not I can decipher the missive. Ordinarily, I scan such releases, glean what I can, and leave the rest to my more technical colleagues, but the latest is irresistible. I got hold of a copy of "The Rainbow Effect" from lter Mirauer of Wharfedale, who had warned me about the

company's research into colors and their ef-

fects on listeners. Coming hot on the heels of

the Peter Belt saga, I figured that this one could wrest away the crown for Most Inane Tweak of 1988.

It helps if you know a little about Walter. A hype-master of the caliber of Harvey Rosen-berg, Ivor Tiefenbrun, or even Bob Carver, Mintier is currently overseeing a range of loudspeakers — Wharfedale's Diamonds—

which can be purchased with a choice of no less than 10 grille colors. Grille color choice is not a new idea, as KEF, JBL, Bose (Walter's

previous employer), and others have offered

this option in the past, while companies as disparate as Monitor Audio and Wilson offer selections of finishes far wider than the usual walnut/black/rosewood. What's different this time is that the sales pitch is no longer restricted to aesthetics and domestic harmony.

Putting two and two together and coming up with three, I admit to assuming that the wily


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Walter was looking for an oddball angle to help shift a few hundred unwanted puce, taupe, and lilac grilles, hence the need for a "story" to enhance the appeal of speaker fronts that were neither black, brown, nor grey. His nudge-nudge, whisper-whisper phonecall, like some guy offering you a cheap watch from under his coat, ended with a "Just wait until I send you the documentation." As Walter writes press releases with PT Barnum as his muse, I could hardly wait.

The swallowing sound you're hearing is me

eating my words. WM was not leading up to one of his more whimsical spiels, but to an eight-page document on the aforementioned institute of Acoustics letterhead. The report reads like a tract from a Psychology 101 text, and the implications are staggering. I want to make it perfectly clear from the outset—as did Wharfedale—that the "revelation" has nothing to do with actually changing the sound itself,

but with the way we perceive it. In a sense, they're inseparable, but it gets right down to the fundamentals of assessing hi-fi reproduc-tion, and why two people can listen to the ex-act same sound and form totally different opin-ions. I'd hate to lapse into some zen-like stance,

but I've long held that bow one perceives the sound is the final arbiter, hence my refusal to ally with some reviewers who dismiss the im-portance of personal taste. In other words, if

two out of three listeners hate a given product and the third listener adores it, who's to say that he or she is wrong? We have yet to find a way to listen with other people's ears. Or, in this case, see with others' eyes.

It's long been known in design circles that color can be used to alter an individual's re-

sponse. Paint a room blue and it will seem cooler. Paint a small room in a light color and it will seem larger. This is no inexact science, and texts exist which can help an interior

designer, fabric designer, car stylist, graphics illustrator, or any other stylist create whatever mood they require by fine-tuning responses with specific colors. Indeed, the Scandinavians

have shown that people with blue rooms run their heating some three degrees higher than in rooms of warmer hues. What's so novel

about the Wharfedale research is that it at-tempts to classify colors according to how they

alter our perception of sound rather than of space or temperature. If Wharfedale is right, and the research establishes a repeatable, ved-

fiable system, then color choice will be as im-portant an aspect of setting up a hi-fi as choice of cables or speaker positioning.

Wharfedale assembled three groups of 30 students each from Sandwell College, all of whom were enrolled for courses in sound and

acoustics. They were subjected to demonstra-tions of three Wharfedale Diamonds differing

only by virtue of the color of the grille, but were not told that they were partaking in a color

experiment. The sessions took place in a multi-track studio at Sandwell, the three pairs of

Diamonds being fed the same signal from the control room. Each speaker was illuminated as it played, the effect enhanced by conducting the experiments in a darkened room. The students were asked to complete a question-naire which did not refer to color, the speakers being identified as 1, 2, and 3. The results prove interesting, because they

add a sonic flavor to the known effects of colors.

What would blue, regarded as a cool color, "sound" like? Red is known to be a warm color; would the students describe the sound of the red-grilled speaker as "warm"? The findings were as follows:

The red speakers were adjudged to offer better bass.

The blue speakers were rated as having the

greatest clarity and openness. The yellow speakers were perceived as be-

ing louder and having more treble. The green speakers were rated as being

evenly balanced.

In Walter's own words, the data can be in-terpreted thus: "All of the respondents in all three groups and in all age segments rated the

Yellow speaker as louder and brighter. This is a very clear indication of difference. The small-est difference in sound level that the untrained ear can detect is 2dB in program. Such a market

preference almost certainly equates to a per-ceived [My italics—KM level change of more than 3dB. This is a bigger difference than, say, from Diamond II to Diamond III with its new tweeter." Can you imagine the wave of paranoia among

reviewers? "Invalid! Invalid!" will be the ac-cusation leveled at every speaker review ever published, because the color influenced the reviewer. Considering that black or brown or grey grilles, however, constitute the majority, it would also appear that every speaker has

been judged with the same handicap. Further-


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more, who's to say that, however subcon-

sciously, the designer didn't tweak the real sound because of changes affected by the color? Which then leads to more confusion, because we'd then have to determine how different listeners respond to the same color. And why

not? Don't we all have differing responses to bass-heavy or bright sounds? (Since I do most of my listening with the lights out, I'm pretty much immune to all of the above anyway. . .)

Are designers, consumers, and reviewers go-ing to face a future of assessing groups of

speakers only when they've been given a common-color grille? Will consumers take note of Wharfedale's suggestion, that one can improve—or, more accurately, tailor to one's taste—the sound of a system by changing the grilles for a more "euphonic" color? I have to admit that, abstract as this may appear, chang-ing grilles according to an accurate, reliable color chart seems far less difficult than wading through the myriad cables on the market. And

I'm dying to hear the names that the "after-market grille manufacturers" would create. Im-

agine Monster Cable's "Color Blinds" or Audio-quest's "Speaker Shades." Worse, how about

HFN/RR's Accessory Club offering "Hue Hefners"? A whole issue of Hi-Fi Choice devoted to grilles?

Spare me . . .

Is this yet another episode to be added to the tweak saga which encompasses other

"lost" arts like hanging cables from strings at-

tached to the ceiling, shining spotlights on the speakers, adjusting VTA for every Lp, and various other fads since reduced to cult interest? As I

mentioned before, this latest wrinkle bothers me little as far as my personal listening habits are concerned, because "lights out" is the rule But I most certainly want to be there when the color wars start.

One tweak which hasn't been discredited yet and continues to command new adherents in the UK is bi-wiring. Because few manufac-

turers offer speakers which are "bi- wirable"

straight from the box, a small cottage industry has been created for adapting existing pro-ducts. Paul Crook, whose background in-cludes years as Martin Colloms's assistant, does a nice line in suitably reworked Celestion SL6s

and SL600s, Spendors, and other popular models, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that an importer is offering bi-wired versions of a speaker with the manufacturer's approval.

While it took the UK a long time to appre-

ciatecene of America's most popular speakers, the Spicas, they have finally developed a fol-

lowing. Presence Audio, who distributes the line, decided that the gains from biwiring were too impressive to ignore so they've done their own redevelopment program and pro-duced a bi-wiring option. I haven't tried a pair yet, but Martin Colloms auditioned them as

part of his review of the Tt-50 for Stereopbile last month and was impressed. I'm hooked on the Spicas, and a sensible upgrade—if it works—can only be deemed laudable. The sad thing is that that although Spica has ap-

proved the modification for sales in the UK, they have no plans to introduce it in the US.

Though it's early days, as I write, I have to

warn you of a pending showdown concerning the aforementioned Mr. Belt. John Vizor, editor

of the UK trade magazine Private Eye-Fi, phoned me to ask if HFN/RR would be in-

terested in overseeing some listening tests to determine whether or not the Belt tweaks have any basis in reality Ever suspicious ofJohn—

whose magazine is hi-fi's most scurrilous gossip sheet-1 asked, "Why?" Vizor is not, after all, a tweak or a reviewer but a retailer

who should have better things to do than in-vestigate the incipient madness of the high end. It turns out that, over many drinks, he was discussing the Belt situation with Ross Walker of Quad. Ross "We Don't Sell People What They Want We Sell Them What They Need" Walker is one of the industry's most skeptical, cynical anti-tweaks, and he responded

to Vizor's non-dismissive attitude toward Belt with a challenge. If Vizor could prove, under controlled conditions, that Belt's stuff works, Quad would donate £10,000 (that's $18,000 at today's exchange rate) to the charity of Vizcir's choice.

I know a bookie who'll take your bets.

USA: John Atkinson First, some sad news: John Bowers, founder and the creative light behind way loudspeakers, died of cancer just before Christmas. John, an archetypical gentleman, always civilized, always informed, will be missed. The chair-manship of the company passes to Robert Trunz, who had been in charge of B&W's

marketing. John's legacy to the world of high fidelity includes I3&W's research establishment


rfechnology Perfected Every home audio com-

ponent company has their own irea of expertise. Some manufacturers concentrate on new inventions and patents. Others focus their efforts on reducing costs and producing lower priced components.

More important than being the first or the cheapest, Luxman components are de-igned to achieve their sonic best. The engineers at Luxman

have dedicated a lifetime to perfecting existing technology for sonic superiority.

In the beginning. Lux Corporation of Japan,

as Luxman was originally named, was established in 1925 to design and manufacture high Fality radio tuners for a 'hdgling home radio industry. e word "lux" is a scientific

measure of illumination and was immediately applicable to a company that was seeking to build a "bright" future.

From this modest beginning, the Lux engineers continued to design and develop the internal parts for audio components, and in 1934 assembled a unique vacuum tube amplifier that highlighted our state-of-the-art transformers. Our transformers delivered wider hand-width and lower distortion than the competition, earning Lux an immediate reputation for quality and performance.

In the 1950's, unique tube technology and the use of high quality transformers became the trademark of our quest for audio excellence.

In subsequent years, Lux began exporting to the European market and received numerous accolades for ampli-fier designs. In 1961, the introduction onega ,ve r

contributed to the sonic superiority of the SQ-5B: the industry reference standard for integrated amplifiers.

The transistor revolution.

In the mid-60's transistor technology revolutionized the audio industry, and virtually every audio component could now benefit from the increased efficiency, cost economy and higher power output of transistors compared to vacuum tubes. audio enthusiasts, however, this new technology clearly lost the warm, sonic purity of tube components.

The long and detailed study of transformers and tube configurations enabled Lux to design transistor components that retained truc "musiclity".

Then in 1975, Lux adopted the family name of Luxman and, with their debut at the Consumer Electronics Show in the United States, received immediate critical acclaim for design and performance.

The continued devel-opment of innovative circuit designs, such as IX: ampli-fication (1975), Duo-Beta circuitry (1980) and Computer Analyzed Tuning (1982), were examples of technology perfected for performance. Luxman's reputation was rapidly spreading: transistor amplifiers with the warm, musical sound of previous tube designs.

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in Steyning, Sussex, which has attracted many of the UK's most talented loudspeaker engi-

neers to work on the fundamentals of speaker performance, including the computer model-ing of drive-unit behavior. The late Fall seemed to be a time for musical

chairs in the US hi-fi industry Apparently fol-lowing the lead given by DCI's management buyout of CBS Magazines (publishers of Stereo Review and Audio) and Sony's purchase of CBS Records, further changes took place in November, the major one being car-audio

manufacturer Rockford-Fosgate's purchase of the David Hanel. Corporation and Acoustat

Loudspeakers. (It was only a couple of years ago that the Florida-based electrostatic speaker

manufacturer itself became a subsidiary of Flatlet) Rockford, which also makes speaker

drive-units under the Carbonneau label, says that it has no intentions of making significant changes in product strategy for the two com-panies, and we are assured that David Hafler will continue to be active with the company that bears his name for a good few years yet. Marketing of Haller and Acoustat products will

be concentrated in Rockford's Tempe, Arizona headquarters.

Meanwhile, Harman International, the world-wide marketing conglomerate that owns JBL,

Infinity and Pyle Industries, has acquired the French OEM drive-unit manufacturer Audax,

along with its speaker subsidiary Siarc Audax was apparently in poor financial condition, something which I find surprising considering

the large number of speaker manufacturers

which use its units, but this may have some-thing to do with the increased success of the

Scandinavian OEM manufacturers at the top of the market and pressure from the Japanese at the lower. As with the Rockford/Hafler

takeover, Harman say that they do not intend to introduce radical changes in Audax's cur-rent business arrangement.

PS Audio has completely revamped their line of electronics; fortunately—and wisely— the updates will be available to owners of exist-ing PS products. First off, the best-selling 4.5

preamplifier benefits from improved power supplies and phono/line-stage circuitry to become the 4.6. The price has been raised to $659; the update for the 4.5, which includes a gold 4.6 nameplate, costs $100, factory direct. We have been trying for some time to arrange a review of the 5.0 preamplifier; it's

just as well we weren't successful, as the 5.0 has been extensively redesigned to become

the 5.5. About the only things left from the original 5.0 are the power supply, knobs, volume control, and main chassis. The re-

design includes a new printed circuit board, with completely new voltage regulator, phono and line-level circuitry, and also includes MOSFET output stages. In addition, the phono stage now has 16 gain settings and 16 cartridge loadings. Price of the 5.5 is $1099, and, not

surprisingly the cost of updating a 5.0 is rather more than that for a 4.5: $400. The 200C power amplifier, now in the 200CX incarna-tion, has also been revised, and is joined by a less powerful sibling, the 100C, which offers 128W into 8 ohms for $1195.

Most interesting is a product PS plans to launch in the late Spring: the "Digital Link."

This is an outboard DAC unit, intended to take

the serial digital output from CD players so equipped and provide a state-of-the-art analog signal. "State-of-the-art" is an overworked

phrase in the high end, but PS's Paul McGowan aims to make the phrase literal by mounting the digital filter and DAC circuitry on a plug-in

module; as new chips become available, the Digital Link owner can keep up. At present the

unit, housed in a 4.5-like chassis, appears to use the Philips 16-bit, 4x-oversampled chip set, based on the TDA 1541 dual-DAC chip:

Paul McGowan admits that the 6dB level error at -90dB featured by the digital filter in this set (see Stereophile passim) is real, but claims that

incorporation of digital dither— ie, random digital words (numbers) added to the stream of digital data prior to the digital filtration and

D/A conversion—will correct for it, resulting

in music sounding more natural, with greater image depth. (The trade-off is a higher noise

floor.) The digital dither can be switched out, and also adjusted in level. Price is expected to

be in the region of $1000. For full details on the upgrades and the Digital Link, contact PS

Audio at 4145 Santa Fe Road, San Luis Obispo, CA 93401. Tel: (805) 543-6655.

Strictly speaking, the next item should belong in Ken Kessler's report, but Audiophile

Systems' Susan Larochelle was kind enough to give me the scoop: Linn has introduced a new loudspeaker, the Nexus, to sell in the region of $1095/pair. Astonishing to those who have been familiar with the Scottish company's range of loudspeakers over the years, the


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Linn Nexus loudspeaker

Nexus is a reflex design. Has there been a Cultural Revolution in Glasgow? Have Red Guards overrun Castlemilk? Is Linn's involve-ment in Artificial Intelligence research caus-ing Ivor to lose his mind?

The answer to these and many other ques-tions will have to wait until the next issue of

Stereophile, which will incorporate JGH's report from Las Vegas. But it appears that Linn

has a new designer who reckoned he could get a ported design to work properly. Apart from that heresy, the Nexus is also fitted with two sets of terminals for bi-wiring, combines a

custom-designed, polypropylene-coned, 8" woofer from Tonagen in Japan with the Scan-dinavian-sourced tweeter used in the SARA-9,

and comes with an integral stand. Linn is also introducing an infra-red link system—called

X-TEND—to be used with the tape outputs of the Linn LK1 preamplifier. This modular sys-

tem will enable IR remote signals in any room where there is an IR receiver to be commu-

nicated back to the main system, offering the ability to have the output of source compo-nents in the main system controlled and routed to subsidiary amp/speaker systems anywhere

in the house. (The Linn LK1 can route a dif-ferent source to its Tape-Out sockets from that routed to the power amplifier.) I suspect that by the end of the decade, such

facilities will be the norm on all but the most

purist, sound-quality-above-all systems. Couple this trend with the increased attention being

paid to custom-installation companies by

loudspeaker and amplifier manufacturers such as ADS, Boston Acoustics, KEF, and Sumo, and it is safe to predict that high-end hi-fi retailing in the '90s could well take on the character of a custom interior-design service.

Notebook jottings: We are informed that the long-time partners behind the SOTA turn-table company, Rodney Herman and Robert Becker, have parted, with Becker remaining in control of SOTA. The reason, presumably, has

to do with the delayed appearance of the pro-

duction SOTA loudspeaker. Products from the British electronics manufacturer Cambridge Audio, including their much-heralded CD2

16x-oversampled CD player, are now being distributed in the USA by Celestion Industries, Kuniholm Drive—Box 521, Holliston, MA 01 746. Tel: (617) 429-6706. Since UK loud-speaker manufacturer Goodmans' takeover of Mordaunt-Short (their parent company, TGI, which includes Tannoy, is apparently the

largest loudspeaker manufacturer in Europe, with an annual turnover of nearly $51m), the two companies' US distribution has changed. From January 1, products from M-S and Good-mans will be handled by Geoff Miller, Tel: (303) 293-9737. (Mordaunt-Short, which has just lost its talented designer Phil Ward, has a hot new speaker, the MS442, which will be reviewed in Stereophile Vol.11 No.3).

Hot on the heels of their launch of the 3. "subcompact" disc, or "CD single," the Mas-

sachusetts CD-only Rykodisc firm will intro-duce the first 80-minute CD some time late this month. Manufactured by Pilz of West Ger-many, the CD, TT:80:05, will be a compilation of tracks by the defunct Boston group Mission of Burma. "We're offering an alternative to record companies who release 2-CD sets with total times of under 80 minutes," said Ryko's new publicist Carrie Svingen.

Finally: LA says that competing magazines should be judged not by the time it takes to read them—my basic litmus test (perhaps we should publish benchmarks)—but by whether they include articles you wish you'd published yourself. Well, issues 3 and 4, 1987, of Ed Dell's Speaker Builder magazine certainly qualify: they include a two-part appreciation of the late Richard Heyser by Peter Sutheim, the host of LA radio station KPFK's In-Fidelity program. Missing only an index of Heyser's papers and articles, this superb piece of journalism, which


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includes extracts from a 1976 radio interview, brings out the character of the man and effec-tively exposes the thrust of Heyser's thought: a quoted example on the way in which cross-over distortion in a class-B transistor amplifier dynamically affects the nature of the repro-duced soundstage illustrates the talent Heyser

had for communicating arcane subjects to the layman. These two articles are essential reading for anyone interested in the lack of correlation between what is measured and what is heard. Speaker Builder is available from PO Box 494,

Peterborough, NH 03458 (individual copies, $S; subscriptions, $15/year, 825/2 years).

USA: J. Gordon Holt Altec Lansing, the speaker manufacturer whose modestly sized 301 loudspeakers I reviewed with well-tempered enthusiasm a year or so

ago (Vol.9 No.7), is introducing a "no-holds-barred" system. The BIAS (Built-In Amplifica-tion System) 550 is a pair of massive five-way towers, with 700W of built-in power amplifi-cation per channel for a maximum output-level rating of 120dB—threshold-of-pain level. Each tower stands 6 feet high and weighs an

appalling 437 lbs. There are no castors for easy moving, because they would emboss grooves

in the typical hardwood floor. (The speakers will, however, slide fairly easily across a car-

peted floor; I was able to do it, even though the

speakers' weight is almost four times my own.) All of the built-in amplifiers are located in

a large cube-shaped module recessed into the rear of the main cabinet. A single large-area heatsink with rear-facing cooling fins serves

all the output devices. The gain of each ampli-fier is individually adjustable via an infra-red remote controller, as is channel balance and overall listening volume. A rated sensitivity of 100mV for 90dB SPL allows any CD player to drive the system without the need for an addi-tional line controller. The system embodies some unusual innova-

tions. Each of the two subwoofers per side is housed in its own infinite baffle, and these are separated from the outer walls of the tower by an isolating layer of foam rubber which is in-tended to prevent most of the flapping mo-

tions of the inner walls from being conveyed to the outer walls. All the other drivers, ranged in a central vertical line down a panel between the subwoofers, are attached to a single sub-

divided enclosure which is vertically hinged, so the drivers can be toed-in to any desired angle without having to rotate the entire system. The system was unveiled at a press con-

ference near Altec's home base of Milford, PA. The demonstration was impressive. Not sur-prisingly, the BIAS 550 had a very big sound, with awesome low end, extraordinarily smooth middles and highs, and remarkably good depth. Imaging, though, was only fair, having little specificity and a tendency for the sound to shift to the left or right speaker with relatively

small listener movements from dead-center. I also felt the sound was quite a bit too warm and rich, but since the system allows for a wide range of adjustment in balance, I attributed this to Altec's choice of setup rather than to the

system itself. I couldn't help but wonder, though, how the same company that balanced its woofers 3dB too low in the model 301 could see fit to opt for excessive low end in the BIAS 550 demo. I also had to question Altec's claim of ±2dB frequency response from 20Hz to 20kHz when their own response curve, in-cluded in the press kit, showed a narrow 6dB peak at around 43Hz. The BIAS 550 will cost $12,000—not as

steep as it sounds if you remember that it in-cludes power amplifiers. But what will be the

system's marketing position? Only a dedicated perfectionist audiophile would consider spending that kind of money for a rear end (amplifier/loudspeaker combo), or even giving

it the room space it demands, and serious audiophiles have traditionally resisted the

notion of powered loudspeakers, no matter how much sense it makes. They reason that

loudspeaker designers don't know how to design amplifiers, and vice versa, and it must

be admitted that, historically, this has in fact been the case. Then there's Altec Lansing's perceived image, which as far as perfectionists are concerned, is not at all good. To them, that name is inseparable from the A-7, the model of the "small" theater loudspeaker which served as the workhorse monitor system for some of the biggest record companies for the last 20 years, and was inadvertently responsi-ble for some of the worst-sounding recordings

ever produced by those companies., S

2 The speaker had a very prominent midrange. and no deep bass or high highs; efforts to equalize recordings to sound "good" on them made the recordings sound poor on better loudspeakers.


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however, at prices you'll find very down-to-earth.

At Rotel, our engineers avoid gimmicks and flashing lights. Instead, they concentrate on audible performance.

All critical parts are carefully hand selected on the basis of how they sound when producing music. Direct signal paths - from inputs to outputs - assure highest accuracy and resolution. And our renowned amplifiers, for example, use massive power supplies, along with discrete output transistors rated many times their actual load. As a result,

they can produce high-current output continuously - not just for a few milliseconds. Our 50-watt amplifier actually plays louder and sounds better than many with 100-watt specs - and 100-watt prices.

This pursuit of affordable sonic perfection may explain why Rotel outsells most other specialty hi-fi brands in Great Britain And why hard-to-please British audio critics consistently give Rotel components rave reviews.

For reprints of these reviews, and a brochure on our re-ceivers, Compact Disc players, tuners, integrated amplifiers, power amplifiers, preamps, cassette decks and turntables, just send your name and address to Rotel Audio of America Inc., Department ST, PO. Box 653, Buffalo, NY 14240. Or call us at 1416) 297-0599.

13

lr

High performance. Down to earth

THE BEST SOUND IN NEW YORK

As at the first Stereophile hi-fi show, which took place in March 1987 in Santa Monica, we asked visitors to

Stereopbile's New York show in October what they thought was the room with the best sound. As well as giving an indication of what

exhibitors managed to cope best with the

eNseNtie\e\WW ile%IeWNWNie\e% ONIONNO'Ne%/W

often hostile environment of a typical hotel bedroom or suite in the limited time possible

for setting up, it would also give us an idea of what products attracted the most attention. As

with the results for the Santa Monica show, which were published in Vol.10 No.4, I allo-

cated three points for a "best sound," two points for a "second-best sound," and one for a "third-best." The following table lists all the rooms which attracted 1% or more of the total votes cast. (I disregarded votes for James

Iloyk's and Lewis Lipnick's respective demon-strations of live piano and live bassoon sound— ! think we would all agree that the real thing is better, by definition.)

When reading the table, bear in mind that factors other than sound quality will influence the results, the most important being the reduced traffic an exhibitor will get if he con-ducts "closed-door" demonstrations in order

to best demonstrate the system. (The section marked "worst sound," which many respon-dents indicated they felt to have been in poor taste, was included purely for our own infor-mation, but it is interesting that many voted for any and every video surround-sound

demonstration, the main complaint being of uncontrolled low-frequency boom.)

The following tables list the demographics of the visitors to the show, and for interest's sake I have included the data for the Santa Monica show. As might be expected, the visi-

tors to the show were a voracious lot when it came to reading about hi-fi, 50% of them reading between two and four titles on a reg-ular basis and one in four reading my alma mater HFN/RR. There are not that many sur-prises in the list of magazines read, with Audio, as expected, being the most widely read of the mass-market magazines in the high-end, and Stereophile the most widely read of the spe-cialist press. The higher readership for The Ab-

solute Sound in the Big Apple undoubtedly reflects the fact that New York is Harry Pear-son's home turf, while International Audio

Review, Hi-Fi Heretic and High Performance Review also apparently do well in the East.

W INBONII"SieN.".".0\11 tieNieNaINIONIONNONION•1 %10WWNWN.0%«

When it came to age, "baby-boomers" still predominated, as at Santa Monica, but, rein-forcing the impression of this reporter as he pro vt led the corridors, their age was a little higher, the average age being 38 rather than 37

(though the median age—that which splits the attendees into two equal numbers was, para-

doxicall), a little lower at 35.5 compared with 38.5). Looking at the value of systems also showed that visitors to the New York show had rather more disposable income, fully a third

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having systems worth $9000 or more. One forms was that there was a sizeable proportion point of interest to emerge from the returned of women at the show.

TABLE 1: ROOM WITH THE BEST SOUND

Exhibitor System details

Apogee Apogee Divas/Krell/Basis/Koetsu Martin-Logan/Thresh- Martin-Logan Statement/Threshold 10.6% hold/Monster Cable CSA Electronics Cello/Duntech/Accuphase 9.7% Lyric Infinity IRS V 9.2% Sound by Singer Apogee Diva/Krell 5.2% Lyric Magnepan Tympani IVA/Mark Levinson 4.7% Sound by Singer Snell Type A/ARC SP11, M300 4.6% Woodbridge Stereo Wilson WATTs/Entec/Threshold 3.5% Museatex Meitner/Acoustat 33 3.0% Stereo Exchange Sound Lab A3/Rowland Research 2.7% Lyric C-J Synthesis Reference 2.3% Ears Nova Linn/Naim/Epos 2.2% Vandersteen 1.9% Audio Breakthroughs Dahlquist D020/ARC 1.8% Esoteric Sound Sys. Shahinian/Bedini 1.7% Lyric Infinity IRS Beta/C-J 1.5% B&W B&W 801 Matrix 1.5% MAS Imports Electrocompaniet 1.3% Eminent Technology 1.2% Innovative Audio Thiel etc 1.2% Landes Audio VTL/Princeton/Well Tempered 1.1% The Mod Squad The Mod Squad/Vandersteen 1.0% Woodbridge Stereo Infinity IRS Beta 1.0% Audio Influx Rogers Studio 1A/Arcam 1.0%

(All other exhibitors received less than 1% of the votes cast)

Percentage of Votes

14.2%

Total number of votes cast: 1311.5, Total number of forms returned: 237

TABLE 2: MAGAZINES READ

Magazine

Stereophile Audio The Absolute Sound Stereo Review Hi-Fi News & Record Review (UK) High Fidelity The Sensible Sound High Performance Review Digital Audio International Audio Review Hi-Fi Heretic Fanfare Hi-Fi Answers (UK) The Audio Amateur Hi-Fi Choice (UK) The Audio Critic Speaker Builder Gramophone

Percentage of visitors who regularly read it

84.0% 64.4% 60.6% 35.00/o 24.6% 18.2% 16.5% 15.7% 11.9% 11.4% 11.0% 8.1 0/0 5.9% 5.5% 1.7% 0.8% 0.8% 0.4%

(Santa Monica)

(88.0%) (67.5%) (53.0%) (36.5%) (25.0%) (20.5%) ( 9.0%) (11.5%) ( 0.5%) ( 3.5%) ( 2.5%) ( 5.0%) ( 6.5%) (10.0%) ( 4.5%)


TABLE 3: VISITOR BREAKDOWN BY AGE

Age Percentage of visitors (Santa Monica)

Under 21 1.7% ( 0.6%) 21-25 3.5% ( 8.7%) 26-30 15.7% (19.8%) 31-35 23.9% (20.3%) 36-40 22.6% (21.5%) 41-50 20.9% (18.0%) 51-60 9.1% (10.5%) Over 60 2.6% ( 0.6%)

We asked visitors about the size of their col-lections, both of LPs and of CDs. Though there

were a small number of audiophiles who were obviously less interested in music than in the sound it makes-the acid test is to compare the size of their record collection with the value of their system, 25 records and a $25,000 system appearing twice-it would appear that a typical New York audiophile is a music lover, owning between 250 and 1000 LPs (the aver-age is 623), with either between 50 and 250

CDs or no CDs at all- "Absolutely None!" wrote Anthony Roukis of Ridgewood. Two correlations popped up from the maze of

numbers, which was that women visitors to the show tended to have CD-based systems, and that those with the most LPs tended either to have no CDs at all or a large number. An in-verse correlation was found between quality

of handwriting and value of system-obviously doctors spend a lot of money on hi-fi com-ponents and music.

TABLE 4: LP AND CD OWNERSHIP

No. of LPs Percentage (Santa Monica)

Zero 4.8% ( 3.5%) 1-50 2.2% ( 4.7%) 51-100 5.4% (10.5%) 101-250 21.2% (19.2%) 251-500 29.0% (28.7%) 501-1000 22.8% (17.0%) 1001-2000 8.0% (10.5%) Over 2000 6.6% ( 5.9%)

No. of CDs Percentage (Santa Monica)

Zero 33.3% (36.4%) 1-10 2.6% ( 9.8%) 11-20 7.0% ( 9.3%) 21-30 6.6% ( 9.2%) 31-40 5.7% ( 3.5%) 41-50 7.9% ( 5.8%) 51-100 14.9% (15.0%) 101-250 16.2% ( 6.9%) 251-500 5.8% ( 2.9%) 501-1000 ( 1.2%)

From all reports, the show was a success for the magazine, for the exhibitors, and for those who braved the traffic to attend, so Stereophile

will be once again entering the fray Our second Los Angeles Hi -Fi Show will again take place at the Bay View Plaza Holiday Inn, Pico Blvd., Santa Monica, from April 8 through 10. Admis-sion at the door will be $10, but advance tickets will be available for $7.50. For full details of

when,Where, who, and what, see the advertise-ment and ticket order form on p.66.

TABLE 5: SYSTEM VALUE

Value of system

Under $1000 $1001 -$2000 $2001 -$3000 $3001 -$4000 $4001-$5000 $5001 -$6000 $6001 -$7000 $7001 -$8000 $8001-$9000 $9001-$10,000 $10,001 -$12,500 $12,501 -$15,000 $15,001 -$20,000 Over $20,000

Percentage

2.7% 8.4% 11.1% 4.0% 12.0%

8.0% 7.1% 4.0% 7.6% 5.8% 8.0% 3.6% 8.4%

(Santa Monica) Over Under

( 3.1%) (11.5%) (12.7%) (13.9%) (12.1%) ( 9.1%) ( 6.7%) ( 5.5%) ( 3.6%) ( 9.7%) ( 3.1%) ( 4.2%) ( 1.2%) ( 3.6%)

97.3% 88.9% 2.7% 77.8% 11.1% 73.8% 22.2%

26.2% 52.5% 38.2% 44.5% 47.5% 37.4% 55.5% 33.4% 62.6% 25.8% 66.6% 20.0% 74.2% 12.0% 80.0% 8.4% 88.0%

91.6%


\ \ II1l(ItI

"In its price category, the Adcom GFA-535 is not only an excellent choice; it's the only choice:' s-TeigTheAud°CheaDskate

e0 0

Vol. 10 No.7 November1987

11111111•11111111111111h. MIN

.010.1.1.••••1111«.

Adcom GFA-535 power amplifier. The complete report: Sometimes products are too cheap for their own good, and people don't take them seri-ously: the Superphon Revelation Basic Dual Mono preamp, Rega FtB300 arm, AR ES-1 turn-table, Shure V15-V MR cartridge, and the B&K ST-140 power amp. They can't be any good because they cost so little, right? Wrong, of course. Adcom appears to be having the same prob-

lem with their $299.95 GFA-535 amp. Credi-

bility. Now if this amplifier were imported from

England and sold for $599.95, then maybe it would be taken seriously. And highly praised, no doubt.

For the baby Adcom is one of the finest solid-state amps I have heard. No, not the best; I'm not sure what is the best. But it's an amplifier that is so good for so little money as to be practically a gift.

Actually, when Rob Ain from Adcom called, I was about as enthusiastic about the GFA-535 as you were before you finish reading this piece. But Rob insisted, "You've gotta hear this amp." He brought it over the next day, along with

the GFP-555 preamp ($499.95), and we put both pieces into the rest of the system: a Shure Ultra 500 in a Ftega RB300 arm on an AR ES-1 table, with Quad ESL-63 speakers on Arcici stands. Then we chatted for a half hour or so while the electronics warmed up. And then, simultaneously, the two of us

decided to shut up and listen.

"I've never heard the Quad ESL-63 sound better," Rob said. Of course, he was hardly an impartial observer, but the sound was extraor-dinarily clean, detailed, and musical. If it wasn't the best sound / have ever heard from Quads, it was pretty close.

This humble $300 amplifier was driving a pair of very revealing $3000 speakers and giv-

ing a very good account of itself. (We listened first to some Goran Sollscher classical guitar.)

"So how come this product isn't flying off the dealers' shelves?" I asked Rob.

"I don't know. Everyone wants the GFA-555 with 200 watts per channel. Including people

who don't need it." "Does the GFA-555 sound any better?" I

asked. "No, it's our aim to have all our amps sound

pretty much the same. You pay more money, you get more power." Rob pointed out that while the GFA-535 is

rated at 60Wpc, it puts out more like 80. And

while I did not do any measurements, my ex-perience with other amps tells me Rob's right. I suppose Adcom doesn't want to steal sales from its GFA-545, rated at 100Wpc and selling

for $200 more. After a couple of hours, Rob left, grinning

from ear to ear, and I later sat down to listen alone. True, when I tried certain Telarcs and pushed hard I could get the amplifier to clip— two LEDs quickly light up (very useful). But the Quads were running out of the ability to

use the power anyway. My first impressions

Advertisement

were confirmed: the GFA-535 is one of the best amplifiers around for driving Quads. Spendor SP- ls, too.

Suddenly, it hit me what this meant. Con-ventional wisdom had been dealt a severe blow. You know, the old saw that you should

never power a good pair of speakers with a

"The GFA-535 reminds me of...amplifiers that sell...for about three and five times the pricer

cheap amplifier. Here was a cheap amp—one of the cheapest on the market—that sounded good with Quads, Spendors, later Vander-

steens. Probably Thiels, too—at least the CS1. What it means is you can stretch your speaker budget a bit and get the speakers you really

want, then economize by buying an Adcom GFA-535 for $299.95. True, you may be a little power shy, but probably not much. And to say the least, the GFA-535 would make a decent interim amp.

What does the GFA-535 sound like? (You thought I'd forget that part, right?) Well, this is one of the most neutral amps I've heard.

"...the baby Adcom is one of the finest solid-state amps I have heard...so good for so little money as to be practically a gift'

While it doesn't sound particularly tubelike, it avoids the typical transistor nasties through the midrange and into the treble. I wouldn't call it sweet—there's no euphonic coloring— but it isn't cold or sterile What it is, is smooth. And detailed. Far more detailed than I would ever imagine a $300 amplifier could be. The GFA-535 reminds me of the Eagle 2A and PS Audio 200C, amplifiers that sell, respectively,

for about three and five times the price. Of course, they have more power. And they are

more detailed. The point is, the Adcom comes close. Very close.

The bass, like everything else, is neutral, cer-tainly not fat and overdone But it's here where you notice that this amp is not a powerhouse

You just don't get the solidity and extension you get with a very powerful (and expensive) solid-state amp. Nor do you get the breadth and depth of soundstage that you often find with a very powerful amp. The Adcom GFA-535 sounds a wee bit small, which it is.

My only criticism, and it's more of a quib-ble, is that the speaker connectors are non-

standard and unique (so far as I know). You in-sert bared speaker wire into a hole and twist the connector tight a quarter turn. Most speaker cables will fit, but some will not. Certainly MIT won't. Neither will the best Kimber, the kind with eight clumps of strands. The less costly four-clump Kimber will, and proved an ex-cellent choice. My sample amp was quiet—

"This amplifier is so good and so cheap that I think any CD owner who buys an integrated amp is nuts:' no hum—and ran cool. There are selectors for

two sets of speakers. And the 535 looks nice.

And talk about economy: If you're not in-

to LPs anymore, you could buy a Mod Squad, dbx or Old Colony line-level switching box— or possibly a B&K Pro 5 preamp, with its switchable line amp section (only $350)—and run it with a CD player. In fact, if you are in-

to CD only (no tape, no tuner, no phono), you could buy a CD player with a variable volume output and run it directly into the Adcom. This amplifier is so good and so cheap that I think

any CD owner who buys an integrated amp is nuts.

In its price category, the Adcom GFA-535 is

not only an excellent choice; it's the only choice. The real question is whether you should buy one even if $299.95 is much less than you planned to spend for an amp—ie,

whether you should put the money into a bet-ter CD player or pair of speakers instead.

ADCOM. 11 Elkins Road, East Brunswick, NJ 08816 201-390-1130

Distributed in Canada by PRO ACOUSTICS. INC Pointe Claire. Quebec H9R 4X5

AUDIO with George Graves -11

lives with a

Luxman

R-DAT recorder

n yacan trheecyocrodmoen out"I

/

4 4 ' with wait

overheard a potential CD-player

buyer tell the young audio salesman. "What on Earth for?", thought I, as I turned my atten-tion to other matters. I mean, really, what possible use could the average consumer have for a home recording medium which has a

96dB dynamic range? What would they do with it, copy FM broadcasts? Well, if the var-ious Japanese consumer electronics conglom-erates get their way, and the Recording In-dustries Association of America (RIAA) doesn't,

we may soon be able to answer that very ques-tion. DAT is coming.

DAT is the audio-cassette recording medium

that borrows some technology from CD and some technology from your friendly VCR. Mix this with ample amounts of politics, greed, and rampant paranoia, and you have a recipe for the biggest tempest-in-a-teapot ever to hit the world of audio. You see, the record companies (and their

mouthpiece, the RIAA) don't want us to have this new toy. Or at the very least, they will let us have only a thoroughly crippled version. By pushing through Congress some form of legislation aimed at ending home tape re-cording—see J. Gordon Holt's article on this subject in Vol.10 No.5 —the poor, starving record companies hope to recoup the many millions of dollars "lost" each year due to the unauthorized copying of legally protected material. They are using DAT as their scapegoat and test case If these machines can be lawfully lumbered so that they cannot record material which has been encoded with an analog copy-protection signal,' the recording industry

won't object to their being sold here As of this writing, a House subcommittee has approved a bill requiring "some form of copy protection circuitry." The bill next goes to the House

I The one under serious consideration, as I'm sure most of you know by now, would remove a portion of the music centered around 3800Hz, thereby audibly ruining any record-ing so encoded.


Rotary Heads Energy and Commerce Committee, where, we

can only hope, more realistic opinions will prevail ,2

Whatever happens, if a stupid, special-interest-serving bill like this one does make it into Federal Law, we all lose. If they can put program-damaging copy protection on CDs,

they can also put it on vinyl, analog cassettes, videotapes, laserdiscs, TV broadcasts, radio broadcasts, in fact every source of sound. Now,

this will do what the record companies say they want—stop illegal copying5—but it will also stop legal copying, which is what the record companies really want. They want you to buy a CD for your main hi-fl, a prerecorded tape for the car, and a second CD or tape for

the mountain cabin—all of the same program. Sounds like pure, simple greed to me. What is legal copying? Well, according to

our courts and copyright laws, after a con-sumer purchases a piece of copyrighted mater-ial, he or she may make as many copies of that

2 Those who have yet to write their Congressman on the mat-ter of Cops-code and the notching of recorded music by removing a hand of frequencies in the region where the car is most sensitive can obtain a prepaid printed postcard from the Home Recording Rights Coalition, a pressure group set up by tape and equipment manufacturers. All you do is fill in your name and address, sign the card, and return it to the FIRRC, who will forward it to your Congressman. Write the FIRRC for a card at PO Box 33'05. 1145 19th St. NW. VVashington, DC 20033. or call them toll-free at I -800-282-TAPE.

material as they wish, as long as those copies are for his or her own use. That means that

you may legally make cassette copies of your own CDs to play in your car, and you may

make a tape of that new record to play while keeping the actual disc new and pristine. What you may not copy are your buddy's records,

tapes, or CDs (even if they are out of print), and you obviously cannot copy anyone's

records, tapes, or CDs for sale. This copycode thing will make even legal copying impos-

sible. Make no mistake about it, the anti-copy

chip will start out in DAT machines, but it will quickly find its way into analog cassette

machines and even open-reel recorders! If this isn't enough to add insult to injury,

preliminary tests of the system under con-sideration indicate that it can be accidentally false-triggered into going into the "protect

mode" even while making a live recording, if that signal has insufficient information in the affected frequency range. This means that a tape machine fitted with a copy-protect chip

won't even reliably record your kid's birthday party! Even if you don't give a hoot or a holler about home taping, the removal of a band of

3 For a while. What the RIAA overlooks is that these so-called "pirates- arc pmfessionals. If they sec a buck in selling pirated CDs on DAT tapes they will find a way to defeat the circuitry involved.


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music from future records, tapes, and CDs should be enough to get you up in arms.

Careful there, complacent audiophiles; you are about to lose a right!

OK, fine; now what about this DAT machine? Yes, well, sorry for the digression, but I felt

it was necessary. The nice folks at Luxman/ Alpine sent me a pre-production prototype of their KD-117 DAT recorder to play with. And I do mean "play": since the legal status of DAT is still up in the air, this machine may not be representative of what we here in the USA finally get to buy (if anything). For this reason, Luxman has asked me not to specifically re-view this machine as an equipment report, but to basically get a feel for the technology, its capabilities and limitations, and to see what use the things might actually have. This I have agreed to do. So, on with the show!

The problem with a DAT machine is, as I

said earlier, the fact that the average consumer has almost no use for such a device. The record-industry sales figures for the last couple of years show that even the lowly prerecorded cassette tape sells better than does the vinyl record. (The actual figures for the first six months of 1987, as published as percentage shares of the market in the US, UK, West Ger-many, France, and Japan in The Economist, are: cassettes, 44.2%; 45rpm singles, 22.2%; LPs, 19.8%; and CDs, 13.8%—CDs having in-creased their market share by a factor of 3.5:1 since 1985 while LP has dropped by a factor of 1.5:1.) This proves, almost conclusively, that the average consumer has little interest in quality. If the recorded music buyer can accept the high noise level and generally poor fre-quency response which characterize prere-corded cassettes, then one can pretty well figure that he is not going to see the need for digital cassettes, or $2000 machines to play or record them on. Now, as you are a reader of Stereophi/e, I assume that you are not an average consumer. As a writer for Stereophile, I can assure you that I'm not; yet I have found only a few uses for the thing. Most of these uses, because of some of the recording activi-ties that I am involved in, would not apply to most audiophiles, regardless of how serious they might be. One of the more practical uses that I have

found for the DAT machine is the transfer of my analog master tapes to the DAT format. If you have ever done any serious live recording,

then you know how valuable your master tapes are. Each time you play them you risk damaging them, and of course, residual mag-netism on the tape heads, guides, etc. erases a little of the high frequencies. The result? Well, if you're like me, you don't play them very often, even though you would like to do so. Over the years, I have made numerous cassette dubs of some of my better masters,

and of late, they are sounding pretty good. But no matter how high the quality of tape or recorder, transferring a 15ips master to the Phips cassette format just doesn't work. I am

here to tell you, however, that making a DAT copy gives you a dub so close to the master that it is extremely difficult to distinguish one from the other. Now I can listen to my "mas-ters" any time I wish! That alone makes a DAT machine a must for me.

Realizing that the most prevalent use that the DAT machine will get in most audiophile systems will be to copy CDs, legally or not, I tried it. The results, while slightly more col-ored than the CD (two more data-conversion steps are added; direct-digital CD-to-DAT transfers are impossible due to the fact that, as manufactured, an R-DAT recorder will not record at the CD's 44.1kHz sampling rate), are nonetheless adequate for most people's uses (ie, for playback on a DAT car player). I also used it with an outboard Sony timer

that has been in my possession for a number of years to record some FM radio programs off the air. There is a two-hour program of Latin jazz which is broadcast late at night in my area on a technically fine FM station. Before DAT, it was impossible to tape it with a normal cassette deck (unless it auto-reverses in the record mode, but you still miss a little during turnaround and you are forced to use the unreliable C-120 cassette lengths). Using the audio portion of a Hi-Fi video deck works, but I find the sound quality from AFM recordings to be unsatisfactory. (In spite of the ads about video hi-fi being as good as digital, the corn-panding circuits used for noise reduction pump audibly, and the sound is quite colored.) With the DAT recording, the "air-check" was virtually as good as the original broadcast, and of course I could then listen to it at my con-

venience, rather than at the radio station's convenience.

Recently, I had the opportunity to record the local symphony live to DAT. Since making


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a live recording is the most stringent test that one can give a recorder, I figured that this would quickly give me a feel for the machine's overall usefulness and ultimate quality In this case, I was able to connect the Luxman in parallel with an analog open-reel (Revox A-77 Dolby) and another digital recorder (Sony

PCM-501ES used in conjunction with a Sony Betamax VCR). The results, while mixed (for reasons that I will disclose anon), show that

DAT is a format with great promise. First of all, the orchestra is probably one of

the finest civic symphonies in the nation. The program consisted of Berlioz's Symphony Fan-tastique and Charles Ives's Variations on

America, and ended with a wonderful perfor-mance of Shostakovich's Violin Concerto I.

The music varied in texture and content to the point of being absolutely perfect for this

evaluation. The Symphony Fantastique, scored for an extremely large orchestra, has incredible dynamic range, but the DAT machine

just sailed through it all. Like all digital recorders, the DAT machine doesn't require any gain riding after the levels are once set, but

one must be very careful to set those levels so that the peaks never exceed the OVU mark on the meters. This is really no problem with a

digital recorder because of its low noise floor and 96dB dynamic range. Average levels which would be considered "in the mud" for any

analog recorder are the order of the day for digital.

The cardioid microphones used for this ses-sion were a pair of Neumann KM-84s mounted on a stereo T-bar, about 7" apart and angled at 90° to one another. The mikes were then hung from the proscenium arch center-stage

about 15 feet over the conductor's head, and pulled back over the stage apron. This classic stereo microphone placement is my personal

favorite, and if any configuration can elicit soundstage from a digital recording, this is the one t have found to be it.

The first thing that I noted upon listening

to the finished R-DAT tape was how unnatural-

ly bright and harsh it sounded. Since the Lux-man measured absolutely fiat, and dubs made of old analog masters sounded fine, I had to assume that the problem lay elsewhere. Listen-ing to the recording made by the Sony proc-essor/Betamax set-up (which was connected in parallel with the Luxman DAT recorder

along with the Revox during the record ses-

sion), I found the same upward tilt to the top end of the spectrum, accompanied by the

same harshness. Going back to the open-reel master, I noted that the spectral balance was almost perfect, exhibiting little or none of the shrill, distorted character of the two digital recordings.

"Ah-Hah," I hear you say, "that proves that there is something wrong with digital! Just as I always suspected!" But hold on—remember, I said earlier that digital dubs of analog masters sounded fine. I have also noted this same phenomenon with CDs made from older analog recordings. A look at the frequency-

response graph supplied with the Neumann KM-84s supplied the answer. They exhibit a

rising high-end characteristic on-axis which

is up more than 15dB at 15kHz (with respect to IkHz)! It is important to remember here that analog recorders self-erase high-level, high-frequency information and roll off at the high end, while digital recorders do not. So "hot" microphones do not affect analog recorders

as much as they affect digital recorders. The

analog machines just lay down on tape what they can, and self-erase the rest. A digital recorder, on the other hand, has flat power response. It will record a 20kHz signal at OVU just as readily as it will record a IkHz signal at that level. If the microphone is flat, no prob-

lem. But when the microphone has a sharply

rising top-end characteristic (as do most older studio condenser mikes), not only will the resultant recording be shrill and overbright,

it will also probably be distorted because the hot top end can take the record level over OdB

during loud passages (a digital no-no, remem-ber?) while the rest of the spectrum doesn't ex-

ceed -5dB. Due to the ballistics of most recording-meter circuits (even peak-reading

types), it is probable that this high-frequency overload won't even register on the meters unless it is a sustained signal. This leads to sound that exhibits the "bleeding ears" syn-drome that many audiophiles associate with digital sound. Anyone contemplating the ad-dition of a DAT machine (or any type of digital

recorder) to his or her live-recording ensemble should keep this in mind. Use microphones which are flat or slightly rolled-off on top. You'll be a lot happier with the results.

Long-time readers of Stereophile will prob-

ably remember that this writer has, in the past, not been very happy with the soundstage


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presentation of most CDs. I have often specu-lated about the possibility that this is the fault of the recording medium itself rather than a problem with the digital productions or player shortcomings. This recording session was a

perfect opportunity to find out the truth of the matter to my satisfaction (and, perhaps, yours).

Since I used a microphone arrangement which I know from experience to give great

stereo, the truth was in the listening: Borrow-ing the analog tape from the Symphony's

recording engineer (same mike feed) and con-necting the bit-stream output of the Luxman

DAT to the direct-digital input of a Denon DAP-5500 preamp (via optical cable), I was able to use the same D/A converter that I used for listening to CDs. The analog tape was threaded onto my Sony TC-880-2 (probably

one of the best semipro analog recorders ever made) and connected to the Denon through one of the tape loops. The levels of the two

machines were set identically (using a sound pressure meter). Switching between the two machines (which were started at the sanie time and which were running as close together as possible), I noticed that not only did the DAT machine indeed image, it imaged slightly bet-

ter than did the open-reel. It was easier to pick out individual instruments with. the DAT tape, and there was less image wander. Front-to-back was also accurate, and this depth extend-ed all the way to the edge of the soundstage. The analog recording was, by comparison, foreshortened at the extreme edges. With my eyes closed, my ears painted a perfectly ac-curate picture of the ensemble's arrangement on stage; in the Berlioz, the off-stage-left quartet sounded offstage.

Except for the highs, this is probably the best-sounding recording that I have ever made, marking the fact that the highs were so exceptionally irritating to me. But this is not

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hoped it would be. Sitting here, writing this, I am reminded of how I felt after the concert,

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F;. lsewbere in this issue, I ret•iew the

new Spica Angelus loudspeaker only

the fourth produa to appear from this

Santa Fe-based manufacturer since it started

operations at the end of the 70s. Ibu will bare

to read the review to learn what I thought of the speaker a distinctively styled jloor-stand-ing two-way, but I also thought it would be

beneficial to talk with Spica 's founder and chief engineer John Bau. I therefore made ar-

rangements to meet with him in their facility

just a couple of blocks from Stereophile's old Early Street HQ I had been told that John was tall, but until be unfolded himself from his

stool in his laboratory, surrounded by com-

puters and computerized test equipment. I

had not realized how tall! Undaunted, set-tled into a conventional chain pointed the microphone in a vaguely upward direction,

and asked John how be bad gotten into loud-

speaker design.

61

JB: I've been a musician since I was 12 years

old—I play acoustic guitar and bass—and after a certain point, I got more interested in studio work. By 1976 or '77, I was working in a re-

cording studio in Albuquerque It was a pretty nice facility, considering it was in Albuquer-

que—it had two 16-track recorders. When you listen to an instrument in the studio, you move your head around to get the sweet spot and you place a microphone on the instru-ment, but when you go back into the control

room and listen to what's coming out, it isn't

the same. I mean, the disparity between the live and the reproduced was pretty awful. Obviously I wanted to make some im-

provements to the system that was in the studio! The weakest links in the chain are the mechanical to electrical transitions; je, the microphones and speakers. Well, micro-phones were a whole level of technology that I couldn't really apply myself to without specialized knowledge—I don't have any train-ing or degrees in audio engineering, although I'm not afraid of playing around with elec-

tronics—so I ended up playing around with loudspeakers. I was fortunate enough, I guess you might say, that the person I was working

for was very stubborn, very set in his ways, and would not let me experiment with the

studio speakers. I had to start doing it on my

own. So I went out and bought a reasonably priced pair of speakers, I think it was a pair of Advents or something, and just started play-ing around with them, seeing what changed what.

After a few years, I got involved in a project producing and playing on an album that re-

quired that I go to a number of different studios around the country in order to utilize the talents of various people who couldn't

come to New Mexico. I needed, therefore, a

pair of lightweight compact speakers that I could haul around with me; I've been in enough studios to know that they all sound different, and I didn't want to have to keep

making adjustments when I went to Studio X or Studio Yin Nashville. I wanted something that I could take with me that I could trust—a transportable monitor. I had been playing around with this tubular material, so the result was the first Spica loudspeaker, the SC50. (Peo-ple used to say that this was reminiscent of the little JR 149, the semi-cylindrical thing with

endcaps, although I had never seen a pair.)

All this work was being done by ear; I had a voltmeter, but I didn't have a microphone. I was renting a house in the little town of Madrid, near Santa Fe, and because the room sounded awful, I would stick a pair of the speakers out in front of the house. There was quite a bit of tourist traffic through town, and

people would stop: "Hey, those sound good, how much do you want for a pair?" So I'd end up selling four or five pairs a month. Part of me

said, "Hmm, this is interesting. It's a nice lit-tle income on the side." However, then the

funding for our project got cut off, I parted company with the person I was working under, and I decided that I'd had it with music; trying to make my living in the bars and in the

studios wasn't working very well. It therefore felt fairly natural to explore the speaker thing. The amount of money necessary horrified me, but a few months later I got married and my wife's mother gave me a gift of enough money

to buy all the materials to do 50 to 100 pairs of speakers.

This was in 1978. My intention was to sell the SC50 to friends and to market it through

local dealers and hope to make a go of it. I was doing OK selling them to people I knew, but

Santa Fe isn't that large a town; the dealers would all say, "Well, here's a local boy trying to make a go of it. Good luck. But we can't really help you." It was getting pretty much down to the wire—something had to happen or it wasn't going to work—when a friend told me about PS Audio, who had started their

company a couple of years prior. I really didn't know anything about the hi-fi industry, so 1 called them. They asked if I was going to the Show? "What Show?" I said. "The CES!", they said; "If you're not there, you have no hope." I immediately called CES, who put me on the waiting list for the June 1979 show in Chicago. Things were getting grimmer and grimmer, but then, three days before the show, I got a call


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bought out Dynaco, Dynaco's room on the fourth floor of the Americana Congress was open. Would I like it? "By all means," I said. So I packed up my pair of SC5Os in my lit-

tle Opel Cadet and drove to Chicago. I was just astounded by the size of the companies and the whole scene there.] had to borrow a stereo system because all I had as my reference was my Revox A77 recorder that was in pretty sad shape. (Although the good side of it was that

I had some good microphones and I was us-ing live recorded material.) I was only able to stay at the show for three to four days, because my wife was giving birth to our child while I

was gone, but I obtained about 30 dealers. Peo-ple were really amazed at what was coming out of this little speaker, so I was obviously just in seventh heaven. From that very beginning year, Spica was profitable. It looked like it was going to fly, so I obtained another loan and bought what I felt were necessary tools. I bought an FFT spectrum analyzer, because one of the things that I realized early on was that the disparity between the various loud-speaker systems that I had looked at was not explainable by the differences in their ampli-tude responses. JA: We'll come back to that. In the meantime, your next product was the TC- 50 system, which was launched at the WOES in January

1983. JB: Right. Basically, how we got to the TC-50 was by' throwing out all preconceptions, and just trying, number one, to find a transfer func-tion for a crossover network that actually summed to linear amplitude and phase. That was the biggest thing that needed to be solved. I had already' come to realize, with the help of the FFT and later the Time Delay Spectrometry (TDS) measurement technique system—which 1 found to be superior, more revealing—that the possible clue was in the phase information

and the timing relationships which were totally mucked up on almost every system out there. Since there was no system that I could go and buy to see if this were really true, I needed to build one to see if it really did result in the

ability to, at least in some measure, recreate the sense of space and localization in a more coherent manner. It was a very involved pro-

cess because I was having to set up a measure-ment system that was accurate and predictable, and this was before the TDS system could measure phase. That box hadn't showed up yet. In fact, there was no box that you could buy to give you accurate phase information— something that took me several months to discover. JA: Do you think that part of the traditional

engineer's attitude that phase doesn't matter is because there was no easy way of measur-ing it? Because it's more convenient to push it under the carpet? JB: Sure. And any time you look at something

and you see that there are just a number of roadblocks if you go in that direction, things to overcome that are either going to be very costly or relatively impossible, then you turn your attention to a way to go around it!

This project was as much for my own edi-

fication as anything, though I did hope that it would result in something. I had obtained a fairly large loan at the bank and had a time deadline on it. And when I got to the end of

that deadline, I still hadn't found the key in terms of the crossover function. I could now accurately measure phase, but it took me four or five months to get a measurement system rigged where 1 could actually eliminate all of the nonlinearities of the measurement system

with the help of software. For example, there were timing uncertainties with the FFT ana-lyzer. It would get the trigger from the signal generator but there was a variance as to when

it was going to start collecting data. The soft-ware was sitting there looking for the trigger, so it depended where the microprocessor was in the software loop when it was actually go-ing to send the hardware trigger and start col-lecting the data. JA: And then if you just wanted to average the data, you couldn't because the waveform would be in a different part of the time win-dow for each sample . . .

JB: Sure, it's jumping all around all the time. Thankfully, the company whose FFT box I


Dear Stereophile Reader:

The New York City High End Hi-Fi Show, held this past

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and received tremendous feedback in the face-to-face

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On April 8-10, 1988, Stereophile, in cooperation with

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66 Stereophile. February 1988

had selected was intrigued that I had actually found this problem—they knew about it but, again, had swept it under the rug. You had access to the raw data and you could com-pute the phase, but they didn't display it for you. So they never thought it would ever get caught. But I was very fortunate, because the guy who had designed the box was still with the company. He got right on it, sent me out new ROMs, and I had already evolved the soft-ware to verify that it was OK. Finally, this part works! But then it's something else and I now

have to model all the nonlinearities of the microphone and of the preamp and all of the stuff so that they do not affect what I see on the screen.

JA: Did it come as a surprise to find that the tools you wanted to measure with were, in

effect, bent? That the rules had unequal gradations?

JB: It was very frustrating. When you get down to having to define the problems of the very tools that you need to rely on, it really throws you back. But it did create a very positive attitude because it made me want to trust nothing unless I had actually verified it myself, which is really the definition of Scien-tific Method. However, it meant that I had to forget about sound for months.

When I did get back to sound, I had still not found the key I knew I needed. To me, the first-order crossover systems were unsatisfac-tory for a two-way speaker system. Even for three-way speaker systems.

JA: Because of the wide overlap between the drive-units? JB: Because of the huge overlap region and because of what I think has been described in the literature as the lobing effect. With a first-order crossover system, you actually have

more energy in the crossover region bounc-ing off the floor and then reaching your ears

than is coming to you directly from the speaker. When I was playing around with first-order crossovers, we would do experiments where we would put huge piles of cotton on the floor in front of the speaker—when we'd take it away, it was like day and night. Now I don't think there's any psychological way of getting over that. I don't see that it's possible.

— And you would be getting a lot of distortion from the bass-mid driver because of the very gentle rolloff into the high frequencies. There were a lot of things that were not desirable.

Anyway, I still hadn't gotten this key, and it was getting down to a couple of weeks before

I had to go to the bank and tell them why I couldn't start paying them back. Out of frustra-tion I decided to go to California to spend a few days at the AES Convention there. I was sitting very dejectedly, listening to all these boring papers, when somebody got up and started talking about his experiments with Bessel networks. The more I listened, the more I saw that he had not been able to take

it through to completion because he didn't have the tools. He was working with fairly crude hardware and needed a computer with modeling capability and iterative optimization, which we have, to bring it to fruition. He could see the potential but couldn't take it further.

Boy, the light went on in my head. I imme-diately started investigating the Bessel algo-rithms, evolving models and playing around with time delay as an optimizable parameter —something I had never thought of before,

and I don't know if anyone else had at that point. Not only can you play around with the slopes and enhance the phase response, but you can also move the mid section, or the

bass/mid and the high section relative to each other in time, which creates its own phase rela-

tion between the two. By a process of elimina-tion, I started working with the fourth-order Bessel because it was where the phase was

linear at the crossover frequency, which at least I knew I needed. And after four or five days of work, with the help of the computer I came upon a combination of a fourth-order Bessel for the low-pass filter with something that was very close to first-order Butterworth on the high-pass. It was perfect up to about an octave and a half above the crossover point, with the error occurring at very high frequen-

cies. Now, if you look at that error on a phase graph, it looks pretty awful, but if you plot it as a time-delay curve, it looks very, very good because the time delay that it takes to create a phase aberration at high frequencies is very small. As a result, we were getting group delay characteristics that were flat within a few mi-croseconds. All of a sudden, I knew what I needed to do, I'd got the key. This was also, by the way, a few days before the show From the point of hitting on the key, the TC-50 came together in about five days. We didn't get much sleep. After we'd opti-

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then optimized the crossovers, it was like four in the morning on the day that we had to leave for the show. We screwed 'em in and listened to them, and it was like, I think this sounds good. We threw them in the truck regardless and went off to the show, and the response was pretty astounding. Peter Moncrieffs JAR awarded us an engineering award—the gates had opened up and people were flocking in. The speakers sounded good, though I did hear some problems at the show. I had not given serious consideration to baffle reflection; com-plaints at that time about a paperiness in the

sound coming from the cone was actually baffle-reflection problems from the tweeter— not from the cone. Small things like that. JA: What is your feeling on the relative impor-

tance of other loudspeaker aberrations— problems of resonances in the drive units, in-ternal cavity problems, etc.? JB: They're definitely lesser. I had two main priorities: the crossover function, which is an integral part of the whole necessity for phase alignment; and the treatment of the immediate environment around the drivers because that's like the launching pad. If there was a sentence that really stuck with me when I was first

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is no break. Obviously there is no system that we can sell that will be like that, so on the TC-50 we could only do that to a limited ex-tent, partly because of the timing of things, and partly because of a lack of insight and a lack of tools at the time. I started learning a whole bunch more about that once I got the Crown TEF analyzer. JA: The WCES in January 1988 was five years to the day since the appearance of the TC-50. What baie you tried to do with the Angelus that you couldn't do with the TC- 50? JB: Build the hest $1000 speaker I could. Basically, spend a little bit more money, relax my preconceptions, and hope that the market would accept its cabinet shape; if the TC-50 had a design shortcoming, it was that I was not able to play around more with the area around the drivers. For its time, it was already an odd-looking box. And we weren't sure about ac-ceptance of that. Fortunately, it sold on the merits of its sound. With the Angelus, I wanted to use better

drive-units, especially the bass/midrange unit. More overlap also became very important. The Angelus actually crosses over to the tweeter higher than the TC-50, which is interesting because it's a larger bass/mid unit. But the ex-tension of that unit is better, being much more linear and much more predictable from unit to unit, so we could stretch the units there. The initial listening tests show that we didn't run into a great increase in modulation problems. In fact, we saw a decrease because of the better surface area. And a three-way system would not have performed as well overall, would not have had the coherence.

But one of the things I discovered in the in-terim is that there is in nature an optimum sequence of the arrival of events in time that ends up summing to give you the most linear amplitude response. It's what is called the "Fibonacci Series": the sum of the previous two numbers equals the next. The growth of plants and shells evidence it, and it turns out the one-third-octave and octave equalizers also conform to it. As soon as 1 read about it, it was like, OK, I need to check this out mathemat-ically So I would come to the lab and model this in the computer—you know, just creating little electronic equivalents of things coming out in time, and moving them around. It was right. This really works. Since it's inevitable that we have diffraction and re-reflection prob-

lems, the whole quest is to make the area around the drivers present as few obstructions as possible, and to make sure that those ob-structions that do exist are correlated in that sequence in time. For instance, if you measure a driver in its nearfield and then move back, you want those two measurements to coincide as much as possible; if you're going into cor-recting things with your crossover network, the instantaneous response vs the power response in the room is going to be quite a bit different unless that's the case. JA: So the strange shape of the Angelus baf-fle is to simulate an effective infinite-baffle environment for the tweeter As far as the tweeter is concerned. by the time ils output reaches a discontinuity it has been reduced in amplitude by the fell so that any reflection is sufficiently suppressed. JE: Right. We had chosen those drivers almost a year prior to getting seriously to work on the Angelus. We first had to wait for Audax to send us identical samples from two production runs in a row, which took a long time. Once we had that, and knew what we were working with, we worked on optimizing the baffle geometry and the placement of the drivers on the baf-fle—just one thing after another. We would find that we would do something that was good for the tweeter but bad for the woofer, and then we'd find something that was good for the woofer but bad for the tweeter, and ob-viously the Angelus needed to be better than the TC-50. If it wasn't, it would have been stupid to come out with it.

The only thing that ended up being good for both drive-units was having lots of area around the tweeter but getting rid of as much material on the baffle around the woofer as possible so that the woofer was almost baffle-free. The tweeter needs to see a lot of baffle because it needs lots of wavefront support down to a fairly low frequency. But with the woofer, you're basically playing with its radia-tion pattern; you want to get the dimensions so that they correspond to wavelengths that are within its beaming range. The strange baf-fle shape was the only way we could achieve both things. Once we saw what it was going to look like, we then started to wonder if it was going to fly if it was going to be accepted. We were up against the same thing we had on the

TC, where we were stretching the limits of aesthetic acceptability.


We don't sit and design things to look like that; it's just that functionally it had to be

that way. So we made a cardboard mockup, and said, "Hmm, this doesn't look too bad. I wouldn't mind having one of those if it sounded good." By the way, we don't do any listening during this period. I just work with

pieces of wood and stuff to change the dimen-sions of the baffle; I don't do any listening at all during the design period. It's not until I feel like I'm done that I listen.

JA: in a sense, this stage of your design pro-cess is realizing as something physical what you've already modeled on the computer JB: The modeling process anticipates the shortcomings of the drivers. We don't assume that we've got a bass/midrange unit that ex-tends to DC. We have an idea that we're going to be able to give the woofer somewhere be-tween two and two and a half cubic feet.

That's the sort of space it likes for an optimally damped cabinet. I aim for a sealed-box bass

alignment with a Q of 0.5, which I highly prefer over a ported box for transient clean-liness. That's what ends up coming out to be the best.

JA: Yet hardly any designers opt for this low a Q. It seems that a Q between 0. 7 and I has

been fashionable for a long time. JB: I think that's the best compromise, if one's aim is volumetric efficiency rather than tran-sient purity. But transient purity is what we're

about. And there's a law that I became aware of with the help of Dick Heyser, which is that whenever you have sharp edges in one do-main, it introduces problems in the other. Let's say you've got a system with a frequency

response that extends out really flat but then dies like a rock; that will inevitably introduce disturbances in the time domain, in the tim-

ing relationships. So if transient purity is what you want, what you need are smooth roll-off characteristics at either end of the spectrum. This is a natural law you can't get around.

We accepted early on, therefore, that our systems weren't going to have low-end "hit" when compared with ported box designs, but

they were certainly going to be clearer and bet-ter defined. It's just something that we ac-

cepted, because there was no other way of achieving the transient purity You can take the

same system and make it into a ported design and it would be inferior because you're chang-ing the phase terms way up into the midrange

when you play around with low-end stuff. We're talking three to four octaves above the frequency at which you're making thé altera-tions, and there are still phase changes. JA: And yet you ma;' !maw noted the continu-

ing debate in Stereophile about the amount of bass which should be expected from a loudspeaker it scents to be a subject which gels people very angry.

JB: Yeah, people have pretty strong opinions about it. I'm not sure what to think about it. I have to say that Americans have been weaned on hyped bass, the sort of Hollywood kick

where there's an 80-100Hz hump. It sounds magnificent, with lots of hit and sock, but when you actually measure it, it doesn't go that deep. I also have a hunch that whatever room someone tends to listen in influences their opinions a whole bunch. I don't know

about you, but I live in a pretty solidly con-

structed house. In fact, half of my music room

is below ground, so I don't have a whole lot of energy loss. I don't even have a pair of Angeluses at home yet, I have a pair of TCs, but to me the low-frequency response in that room is much more satisfying than in the

house that I lived in before, which was a fairly cheaply constructed apartment. Because in

that kind of room, most of your low end leaves the room. Your walls can't contain it. The other thing that I've heard from reflex

systems is that there's a monotonic quality to the bass timbre. I was a bass guitar player— still am—and changes in timbre in the low end are very important to me. Even when I was playing professionally, I found that I preferred sealed systems because I could hear subtle dif-

ferences and I could create subtle differences better than with ported systems where there was always this indistinct sameness to the sound. Unless that was the sameness that I wanted, it was really something you couldn't correct for with an equalizer. It's always there. So that, coupled with the far better timing rela-tionship response of the sealed system, sold

me on the sealed system. I didn't look at alter-natives, although early on I was working with transmission line stuff and maybe someday it'll result in a product. Again, though, we have to

to work within the bounds of aesthetic accept-ability, trying to sell a product that people have to put in the room that they generally

want to look the nicest. If you're talking about a transmission line system, then how do you


get the longest line with the least reflection problems in as small a space as possible? We have a solution to that, but it hasn't resulted in a product yet. We don't know how to make it—I know how to make one or two, but it's a pain in the ass. JA: Why did you dedicate the Angelus to Richard Heyser's memory? I assume that he had a strong influence on your thinking.

JB: Oh God, yes. In the early days, even as ear-ly as 1979 and '80 after I'd gotten the Hewlett Packard FFT analyzer to do phase measure-ment quasi-accurately, I read his early work

which had been sitting there unnoticed—how could such genius work could go unnoticed for ten years before somebody picked it up and said. "Hey, this is important") And because

r-1/

I'm not trained in this area, I couldn't make sense of a lot of his stuff because so much is formulae, it's like, "This is explained by chicken scratches." Fortunately, every now and

then he would say "what all this means is," and then he would have a paragraph of real cold

hard English about what it means and how to get there. And I say, "Ah ha, now I understand that and now I know why that has to be done that way."

1 don't know of anyone who could hit on problems as directly as he could, and had the wherewithal to devise a measurement tech-nique that would, that could give you accurate measurements, even in a very small room (ad-mittedly, then, not down to low frequencies). There was no other single source of informa-

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tion that was as helpful in getting me on what I felt was the right track. I just feel an amazing devotion to him.

JA: I remember going to a talk he gaie in Lon-don where he presented the idea of the hi-fi experience as being multidimensional. The

reproduction of music involves five, six, or more separate parameters—as many as you care to identify and map out, in fact—chang-ing instantaneously at any one time, time, of course, also being a parameter But if you

want to measure that performance, you can only really plot one parameter against another, or one parameter against two pa-rameters i f you have a 3-D analyzer or 3-D display. Any one measurement can therefore only give you a tiny part of the whole picture. JB: Right. I mean, part of what he's talking about there is the psychology of musical

perception. I really appreciated that part of his

work, but I couldn't embody it in any way. I had to draw the line there, as I wasn't in a position—again, because of my lack of formal training—to be able to evolve new ways of looking at things. Since we were so far away

from having systems that lived up even to these simple things that we can measure and correlate, we can only do the best we can with the problems that are there—to optimize. If

there's a word that sums up Spica, it's "optimize" JA: One continuing aspect of Spica loud-speakers is that you choose to utilize what are basically not particularly esoteric drive-units,

but then concentrate on getting the best per-formance from them. Do you think that, on

the whole, too much emphasis is placed in hi-fi on obtaining very complicated high-tech solutions to some problems but ignoring others totally? JB: Sure. I think that's a problem of our age.

Not just hi-fi, frankly. But yes, it's very true. I'd like to make one comment on our tweeters, because if there's any criticism that we get con-sistently, it is that we're using a tweeter that is

sort of old technology. We get samples from all these companies and we check them out pretty thoroughly. Again, because we don't

design to suit our ears, we don't really do ex-tensive listening tests but we sure put them

through the wringer on the bench and out in the test box. And we just have not seen a better overall unit.

And one of the very important key factors— and it's going to be true even on a three- or

four-way system—is that we need as much overlap as we can get, a minimum of two oc-taves. Otherwise there is no hope of creating a good phase-aligned system. The nice thing about the Audax tweeter is that if you put it on

a reasonably sized baffle, you've got a 3dB-down point around 600Hz. So if you're cross-ing over about 2400-2500Hz, you've got three octaves of accurate crossover.

JA: I assume that it is also helped by the fact that one listens to your tweeter off its own axis. If you stand up in front of the Angelus, for example, then you hear a lot more treble energy.

JB: Sure, that helps a lot. Another thing that it really helps, something that we really haven't articulated clearly in the past, is that every

driver has an area where its high-frequency response starts to beam, to narrow. Most

systems are optimized so that the listener

listens on that beaming axis. The designer is trying to take advantage of that extra energy in order to get an extended response. For

what, I don't know. One of the things about using the drivers the way that we do is that that's an exception. Most of the response of the driver is not that beaming characteristic.

And if you design a crossover network for that characteristic, all of a sudden you've got this huge suckout off-axis! So if you optimize a system for the norm and not for the exception, then your energy response in the room ends

up being much more linear as well. You can

walk around the room and the tonal balance doesn't change all that much, given expensive rooms. JA: The National Research Council in Canada pretty much determined that severe peaks and dips in the off-listening-axis response of the

speaker will, in a real room, result in audi-ble problems. JB: Sure, because your reflections coming off the wall sound different from what you're get-ting directly. What we're trying to describe here are subtle psychological distractions from an original event. It's a problem that we have to listen in rooms, as far as I'm concerned. That puts a heavy burden on open-panel systems because, to me they don't even appear to be designed to be used in rooms. When I lived in Minnesota I heard some of the earlier Magnepans in a huge room and they sounded

magnificent. In a big room, the antiphase energy bounces off the back wall and comes


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back to the listener so delayed and so low in amplitude, due to the inverse square law, that it doesn't degrade the purity of the direct sound. But when I heard the same system in a dealer's showroom, it sounded awful. JA: Will it be another fire years before the ap-pearance of the next Spica loudspeaker? JB: We're creeping up to our flagship. We've been going around and around with a driver manufacturer who has a quite nice solution that reduces distortion components in the region of the low-frequency driver resonance by like 20dB. It's astounding. You can tell the difference without even putting the drivers in the box. You just hook up one of his and take any other driver you've got and put low-frequency tone through them; this one moves just totally noiselessly and totally linearly,

whereas the other has got all other sorts of stuff in it. So I'd like to incorporate that driver

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an

Ben Duncan describes a passive control unit

à •

PAS-01 passive preamplifier. front

Editor's Introduction: In his review of the PS Audi, ) 1.5 preamplifier

(\'l .0 No. -). Anthony Cordesman found that

switching out the unit's active line stage, in essence reducing the preamp to phono stage, input switching, and volume control, improved

the sound quality. Following that experience.

AHC reviewed The Mod Squad's 5400 Line

Drive preamplifier \ )1.10 No.3), which omits

even the phono stage, turning it into a pure-ly passive control box. The sound quality, for

high-level sources and with some limitations

regarding cabling and compatibility. now ap-proached that of the state-of-the-art -the

Krell KRS2 and Audio Research SP -11.

"Aha!", I thought. Perhaps Stereophile's readers would be interested in a project to con-

struct a totally passive preamplifier, with

volume control, balance control, and provi-

sion for two, three, or more line-level inputs.

Parts quality would be as high as could be practically achieved, using off-the-shelf com-

ponents, and construction would be hard-

wired, to avoid the potential sonic degradation

of printed circuit boards. The only significant

drawback, as far I can see, is that unless a CD

player with a very high output is used, the Kinergetics KCD-20 or '30, for example, with

very insensitive loudspeakers —Celestion

SL600s, Stax ELS-F81s, Rogers/Spendor LS3/

5As, Apogee Scintillas—there would be insuf-

ficient system gain, resulting in too quiet a sound. But with typical moving-coil speakers

with a sensitivity of at least 89dB/W, such as those used by the majority of readers, there

should be no problem. I therefore asked respected English engineer

Ben Duncan, who had designed an active DIY preamplifier design for me when I was Editor

or News & Record Review, to come up

with a suitable circuit for what would become

the PAS-01. This could then be used with an

inexpensive commercial piton() stage such as

NYAL's Superlt (bypassing the latter's own volume control), The Mod Squad's phono

stage. (ir Ben Duncan's own solid-state D3A disc card,' to give high-end preamplifier sound

quality for (almost) next to nothing. (The

PAS-01 was auditioned extensively in Santa Fe using Threshold's excellent, if expensive,

FET-10/P RIAA stage.) Alternatively and more

probably. a CD player could be fed into one input, giving the hest possible sound from Cl),

while the output of the user's conventional

preamplifier, used for I.P playback, could be fed into another. —JA

PAS-01: a tale Isnder ideal conditions, a passive preamplifier

will outperliirm bog-standard electronics: the

circuit below, albeit rudimentary, is "cost-

eflective" by any standards. Nevertheless, I'd

best not shirk from mentioning the fundamen-

tal limitations of passive units. Apart from the obvious limitation of not

having any gain to lift low-level signals out of

I Ben Duman\ ultra 6'6 noisc D3A disc card kit which can 1w configured for MM Mt 'both unbalanced'. or MC balanced operation. with a wide 'mice of loading options. is available from Audio Synthesis, 196 Wollaton Road. Beeston. Not-tingham Nri9 2Pfl. England. Tel. Olt 602 224IMt. Send S3 Lash or MK) milt check'. or 6 MC', tor full catalog of audiophile-grade kits and components. Audio Synthesis can also supply hard-ii,•obsain parts for l'AS -01. including preselected Bourns pi ItentiOMCICIS and CK switches. as well as a complete kit for £99.95 plus 10 shipping.


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the noise floor, a passive preamp inevitably operates at relatively high impedance levels. Accordingly, they are sensitive to interference

from magnetic and electrostatic fields—in other words, hum! The highish output im-pedance, which will vary with control set-

ting—minimum is at full volume, maximum at half volume—will also precipitate high-frequency losses if the unit is carelessly ap-plied. This will be particularly likely if the feed to the amplifier(s) exhibits a high shunt capaci-

tance, due either to the construction of the cable or to the use of very long cable runs, and the HF rolloff will be dependent on volume-

control setting. By the same token, any kind of response tailoring or RF filtration is ruled

out, as is the use of signal sources having high output-impedances (very much greater than lk ohm), such as some tube designs—the CAL Tempest CD player comes to mind—and early transistor equipment.

The PAS-01 has been designed substantially to overcome interactive impedance variations. Nevertheless, for the best results, the output

cable to the power amplifier should be kept short, ideally between a quarter and a half a meter (10*-20"). The input cables can easily be 3m to 5m in length (10'-16'), provided the source has a low impedance: this applies to all solid-state CD players, some tuners, and some tape machines.

'Riming to the actual circuit, a major source

of sonic degradation in preamplifiers is the in-put switching. The hairshirted among you will no doubt plug and unplug every time you want to change source, but for the remaining 99%, the PAS-01 switching has been arranged

so that there is only one switch contact (gold-

plated with the specified switch) in the path between input socket and volume control. This switching arrangement does mean that

two or more sources can be selected simultan-eously, but buffering resistors in the less-critical input paths—the CD input is straight in—ensure that nothing will be harmed; the distortion and/or mix of signals will sound a trifle odd, however. This condition is readily

corrected by switching out the offending source. (A second switch contact lies in the signal path if the attenuator function—see below—is included; if this worries the more fastidious constructor, it can be omitted.)

The heart of the preamplifier is the volume control. Rather than pots with the ubiquitous pseudo-logarithmic "Audio Law" taper to the tracks, I have chosen linear pots.

"Linear pots? Don't they produce a highly non-linear law to our ears?" asked a perplexed Alice.

"Between you, me, Alice, and the Toad," an-nounced the Professor, fiddling with a small

blue object, "1 think we should tell them." "Right-Ho!" said the Toad, leaping bolt upright: "We use linear control pots for stereo


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gain control because the tracking between the

channels is an order of magnitude tighter than

comparable ' log (logarithmic-taper) poten-

tiometers, where any slight physical misalign-ment between the two channels introduces a disproportionate error. But we then have to

add a' law-faking' resistor to our linear pot

(between slider and ground) to accelerate the

attenuation vs rotation. The resulting charac-

teristic change in sound level vs rotation, called

an audio taper note, then sounds smoother to our ears; better than a log pot. Because the

faking resistor typically lowers the load im-

pedance seen by the source by a factor of five

or ten, a linear pot so treated will need to be

5 to 10 times the target value. A look pot plus

faking resistor will be equivalent to a 20k-10k

pot respectively."

"Contrary to intuition," Alice winks, "this

high value doesn't adversely affect the noise

level (or noise resistance) in line-level stages.

For a passive preamplifier, the maximum

source resistance of a 100k pm plus faking resistor is ca 7000 ohms, spelling a maximum

cable capacitance of 200pF —just over lm of

Monster M1000 interconnect—for less than

0.IdB loss at 20kHz."

A stopper resistor—"In line with the ground

connection!", stresses the Professor—limits the possible attenuation to some -35dB. This

part linearizes residual mistracking (or zero-

base error), which always begins to rise sharply

below the -30dB setting on real-life pots: it's

all down to practical tolerances of assembly.

At the same time, it's best to avoid attenuation

settings below -40dB outright. Phew!

Below -35dB, the attenuator switch, SW2,

can be brought into play. This drops the level

by another 20dB with less than 0.05dB inter-

channel error, shifting the volume control's

range down to -50dB (minimum) and -20dB

(maximum). "Rather like a gear change," an-nounced the Toad with a flourish, then con-tinued: "The balance control smoothly swings

the left-hand channel's attenuation by ± 3dB

relative to the right without using any engines

or other active devices, and without beckon-

ing any crosstalk from the offhand channel whatsoever. Poop Poop!"

Needless to say, our reckless friend, the

Toad, forgot to mention the mute switch SW3.

This provides instant silence whenever the

phone rings (or whatever), without disturbing

any control settings. By harmlessly shorting

the outputs to ground, it also avoids introduc-

ing any additional series-switch contact into the signal path.,

Bits & Pieces

Poor components will throw away the poten-

tial for good sound, and the key to the PAS-01's

performance is to use the specified parts.3 The volume control, in particular, can be a source

of all manner of ills. How many of you have

not suffered noisy pots? And how can

hysterical demands for gold-plating be justi-

fied without first tackling the crude, carbon-rubbing-alongside-carbon contacts of the

average pot?

In order of listening, I found the following

pots to give the best sound: Penny and Giles

RF2-10k (very expensive—over $70); Boums 82A/2A/B28/H20/H20 Cermet 5%; Boums

91A/2A/B28/E20/E20, CP 10%. (Old Colony

Parts,4 The Audio Amateur's associated com-

pany, also stocks an ALPS pot which would

work well, though as this is a logarithmic

design, it doesn't fit in with the Toad's

demands for maximum channel-to-channel integrity.) Compared with conventional

carbon-track pots, these are Rolls-Royce

components—the Boums 91A pot, for exam-

ple, has multi-finger wipers and conductive-

plastic tracks. Wiper-to-track contact proper-ties are on a par with the best stepped at-

tenuators, and even with heavy manipulation,

years of noise-free adjustment may be ex-

pected. Lastly, the Boums pot is an aesthetic

delight, conductive plastic having an exalted,

silky feel. If it feels good. . As mentioned above, the CK DPDT switches

recommended for use in PAS-01 have gold-

plated contacts, as well as gold-plated terminal

2 If the mute is switched in with the balance control fully over to the left and the volume at maximum, then the CD player output (but not the tuner or tape is connected to ground. "In-ters" in Minn \oó. P 33. included a communication (mm Mr. B. Kendall Berg in which he pointed out that to short a CD player's outputs to ground might result in "a smoking Cl) player.- However, as far as I have been able to ascertain. all (:1) players include series output resistors so that this is no problem. In addition, the ubiquitous op-amp chips used hy nearly all players are humpned in this respect. Indeed. if you examine the schematics for popular CD players. many imple-ment the mute while the player is searching the disc by doing exactly this: shorting the output to ground. —JA

3 A beauty of the hard-wired construction is that PAS-(l1 can he constructed with less-optimum components and used until the recommended ones can be sourced. It is then a simple matter to replace the appropriate component with the bet-ter one.

4 Old Colony Parts, P() Box 2-13. Peterborough, N1103158.


TT5

BT3

TARGE_ 141ige

TT2

56

TT3

HJ61/T

TT1

may audio marketing inc. P.O. Box 1048, 76 Main St. Champlain, N.Y. 12919

Tel.: (518) 298-4434


Parts List

Potentiometers VR1a/b Bourns 91A 100kA stereo (see text for alternatives) VR2 Bourns 91A 5kA mono

Switches SW1a-z SW2, 3

Resistor R1 R2 R3 R4 R5 R6

CK DPDT short-bar toggle CK DPDT short-bar toggle

Value Quantity 47R5 2 required for each stereo input 2k87 2 4k99 1 6k81 1 2k87 1 47k5 2

R7 5k62 2 (Holco 0.5% metal-film preferred)

Hardware Gold-plated phono sockets (2 per stereo input, 2 for output) Dress nuts (1 per switch) Enclosure Collet knobs (2)

pins, and the sealed construction will resist at-

mospheric pollution. These switches are wide-

ly used in professional music applications, witness the Fairlight music computer. The resistor featured in the prototype

PAS-01 is a 0.5% tolerance metal-film from Holco (wHOLe COpper), which has done con-sistently well in listening tests carried out by Martin Colloms for HFN/RR. It is also one of the few resistors tested for lead-out integrity,

which may have something to do with it. The lead-outs themselves are solid copper. Old Colony Parts can supply high-quality, mil-spec, I% tolerance, metal-film resistors manufac-

tured by Coming or Resista. These should also present no sound problems, the Resista doing very well in J. Peter Moncrieffs tests in MR.

Undoubtedly the highest sound quality will result if the inputs and outputs are hard-wired, je, flying leads with phono plugs on the end wired directly to the appropriate places in the PAS-01 circuit. However, if the user wants to experiment with leads, high-quality phono sockets with gold-plated contact surfaces, called Royce SCXT8 and equivalent to the renowned Tiffany brand, are available from Old Colony for around $10/pair, as are matching nylon in-sulating bushes. (The matching jacks are also available.) As can be seen from the photograph of its rear panel, the prototype PAS-01 also

sported a pair of XLR output sockets in parallel with the phonos. XLRs are gas-tight, self-wiping, and reliable, which is why they

dominate professional sound. In a domestic system not prone to the slings and arrows of outrageous abuse, however, they are probably an unnecessary luxury, particularly as "audio-phile" cables come fitted with high-quality phono plugs.

Construction The resistors are mounted "daisy chain" fashion by wrapping the ends of the leads in

a loop, then slipping over the lead or terminal. crimping with long-nosed pliers, then solder-ing. Holco offcuts are recommended for short links, and with careful dressing, no insulation will be necessary—air has superior dielectric properties to any plastic. The longer internal wiring in the prototype was fashioned from solid-core single-conductor cable—Radio Shack solid-core hook-up cable is inexpensive and readily available. The OV lines should all be taken to a "star point" consisting of a ground plane made from a 5/8" x 6" roller-tinned, single-sided glass-epoxy pcb laminate.

As supplied, the PAS-01 has three stereo line-

level inputs, but there is no reason why the builder cannot add as many as desired, each additional input requiring two phono sockets


FULL-RANGE PLANAR MAGNETIC

$495 PAIR

MAGNEPLANAR• SMGa —Unique technology —Ordinary price

* Speaker photographed with magnetic structure removed.

III MAGNEPAN 1645 Ninth Street

White Bear Lake, MN 55110

1nre Turtif•

Np r SE,EC1 SinLICrIts Vo•.•UME Ere NG! lTtNANTQN E

,PAS OtAellAl«

and insulating bushes, a CK DPDT switch, and two 47.5 ohm metal-film resistors. The box can be anything, as long as it is of

metal construction for the electrostatic shielding necessary with the highish im-pedances involved. (One UK audio writer con-structed a passive preamp in an antique tea tin.) Small diecast-aluminum enclosures are probably ideal. Radio Shack stocks neat pro-

ject boxes, but as these are constructed from steel and therefore magnetic, their sonic prop-erties will be in doubt, although the low cur-rents involved and the fact that the signal wir-ing is distant from the case might render this objection moot. Audio Synthesis can supply neat engraved front and rear panels, see foot-

note #1 on p.79 for the address. One impor-tant point is that the signal ground can be con-nected directly to the case only if the case does not come into contact with earthed equipment enclosures. If there is a likelihood of this hap-pening, the star ground-plane for the OV wir-ing should be connected to the case via a lk resistor. All the phono sockets should be isolated from the case by using insulating bushes.

If demand for PAS-01 is high, then it is possi-ble that Stereophile could supply a kit contain-ing all the parts except the enclosure for a PAS-01 with three stereo inputs. Write for

details, marking the envelope Dept. PAS-01. Happy listening!


EQUIPMENT REPORTS

WILSON WATT LOUDSPEAKER Martin Colloms

Wilson WATT speaker

Two-way, reflex-loaded (quasi third-order Butterworth tuning) loudspeaker system. Recommended placement: free space, on 24" stands. Drive-units: 1" inverted-dome tweeter, 6.5" doped pulp-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: around 2kHz. Frequency response: 58Hz-16kHz +3dB. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms (but with a minimum of 1 ohm at 2kHz). Sensitivity: 89dB/W/m. Minimum amplifier power required: 50W. Dimensions: 14" H by 12" W by 16.5" D. Internal volume: around 9 liters. Weight: 120 lbs/pair. Standard finishes: white or black lacquer, black lacquer with wood side panels (oak, walnut, teak, rosewood, zebrawood). Price: $5200/pair (2Pi panels, $500/pair, Gibraltar stands, $750/pair). Warranty: 5 years, limited and transferable. Approximate number of dealers: 20. Manufacturer Wilson Audio Specialties, 100 Rush Landing Road, Suite 101, Novato, CA 94945. Tel: (415) 897-8440.

Landmarks in speaker design have been few and far between. There are a few certain con-

tenders: in the UK, the two Quad Electrostatic models qualify, while the Celestion SL600 scored a big point for all small monitors; the Spendor BC1 changed forever the notion that cone speakers were always colored and that big boxes were essential for good sound. In the States, Apogee has taught us much with their surprising mid-treble ribbon-based de-signs. Other technologies have shown promise but have not achieved real commercial success. On the basis of reputation and personal ex-

perience, I had begun to suspect that the Wil-son WATT would represent another such step forward. I knew from my own experience at the Chicago CES that the WATT was impres-sive; it was demonstrably one of the best speak-

ers at the show despite its small size, proving

capable ut breathtaking clarity', transparency,

and depth with appropriate soundsources. 1 therefore awaited their delivery with some

eagerness, cursing early delivery delays. How-

ever, they arrived at last, and some inuoduction is now in order. Notwithstanding the sugges-tions to the contrary in Slereophile's "Letters"

columns, I certainly appreciate the merits of good, big speakers, and regret that nowadays there are so few of them that I can live with.

I also enjoy small monitors, but only if they possess genuinely musical characters. In some respects, then, I was likely to be sympathetic to the WATT rather than dismissive, and would be prepared to take it to the limit in order to assess the full measure of its potential.

For such a small speaker, the WATT is incre-

dibly heavy, dense, and inert. In fact, it feels as if it were made from solid concrete, an im-


pression conveyed by its laminated construc-

tion of mineral-based panels and lead blocks.

Gilbert Briggs, the founder of Wharfedale, always said that you could never fully appre-ciate the potential of a speaker driver until it was mounted in a brick enclosure. Certainly this was the case with the WATT, since its raw drive-units are well known but have never been mounted in such a manner before. In this approach, the WATT contrasts the philoso-phies of an independent US designer and a Japanese corporation. The Corporation ap-proach to designing a costly miniature would be to "reinvent the wheel," applying a range of expensive and complex new drive-unit technologies, and employing costly cosmetic and engineering tooling wherever possible. Without fear or favor David Wilson has chosen to use two inexpensive but substantially good off-the-shelf drivers.

Wilson provides a 25-page treatise on speak-er positioning and use which is guaranteed to improve the subjective performance of any speaker system, let alone the WATT. The dif-ference between relatively casual positioning and listening and a precisely controlled place-ment of enclosures and subject is not a trivial one, assuming that the speakers themselves have excellent time-phase characteristics and are very well matched. Lock-in image focus based on accurate placement is also a major char-acteristic of low-diffraction miniature speaker systems.

Following the commercial introduction of the WATT, some comments were made con-cerning a lightness of tonal balance which was said to be addressed by an accessory generally known as the "Beard" or "2Pi Panel." This comprises a plate fixed to the lower front panel which extends the effective baffle area. The forward radiation characteristics are thereby improved by 1dB or so in the lower midrange, the aim being to fill out the tonal balance. Superb stands are essential, Wilson recom-

mending a solid box-section type such as the 24" "Gibraltar." I achieved good results, how-ever, by using 24" custom Foundation Pi stands —heavy two-pillar jobs, with a lead-sand fill-ing and a welded, heavily reinforced base plate. The latter was firmly spiked to the floor, while the upper plate was well keyed to the speaker underside via three TipToes (alloy cones). Placement on a solid subwoofer box such as the Entec can also work well. We tried

the laminated body of the Ariston QLN woofer (a non-production item), but Wilson Audio has its own proposal for a subwoorer portion. They suggest the Entec SW5 placed against the back wall, with dedicated, low-coloration

stands devoted to the WATTs. As the instruc-tion manual correctly points out, the best stereo focus and definition will be obtained with free-space mounting well clear of the nearest wall boundaries—we found 3.5 feet from the side walls and 2.7 from the rear wall to be the most effective. Wilson also notes that a stronger 2Pi boundary improvement, can be obtained by floor mounting, this improvement in tonal "richness" achieved at the expense of pretty severe mid-treble coloration due to the comb-filter acoustic response imposed by the proximity of the speaker to the floor boundary

It is said that the WATT was primarily de-signed for use as a desktop nearfield studio monitor, which is a very different acoustic en-vironment from stand use in rooms at a nor-mal listening distance. That may explain some

of the emphasis placed on extending the tonal balance, for example the solid stands, the 2Pi

Panel, etc. Should the WATT sold for domestic use require such artifices in the first place?

If we take the view that the cabinet is a superb example of controlled nonresonant clamped-wall technology, then what is the logic behind attaching an undamped open panel such as the "Beard" or placing the speaker on a solid base, when an open stand can offer lower coloration? Some answers to

this question will be found in the section on sound quality. In vibration terms the Beard may contribute more resonance than the en-tire cabinet, due to its unsupported nature. As regards amplifier interfacing, two points

arise. One concerns the rear port which is ef-fective at low frequencies. Two types are sup-plied, one for high-damping-factor (100-400) solid-state amplifiers and the second with a different tuning intended for use with ampli-fiers that possess a higher output impedance, eg, valve models and hence a lower damping factor between 20 and 80. A damping factor

of 80 relates to an output resistance of 0.1 ohm for an 8 ohm load; equivalent to a DF of 40 for

I The "Pi" nomenclature refers to the solid angle in radians into which the speaker radiates. A speaker well away from all boundaries effectively radiates into a sphere, hence the 4Pi label. As a speaker flat against a boundary can only radiate into a hemisphere, this is referred to as 2Pi positioning. —JA


a 4 ohm system like the WATT Interesting as this port option is, a few

points are worth remembering. Most valve/

tube amplifiers have output resistances of 0.2 to 0.4 ohms, whether set to a 4 ohm trans-

former tap or not, resulting in an effective damping factor of 20 to 10 for the 4 ohm WATT impedance. This figure does not take in-to account the loop resistance of the speaker

cable. With high-damping-factor amplifiers, the low output resistance —eg, 0.05 ohm--

cannot be applied to the speaker terminals ex-cept by feedback-sensing cables or by using ver); very thick, short cable. Once in the box, the bass-unit voice-coil winding offers a min-imum electrical resistance of 3.2 ohms (for a 4 ohm system), this appearing in the cable amplifier loop. This is why the sum of the cable and amplifier output resistance has vir-tually no further effect if held below 0.3 ohms for an 8 ohm system, and 0.15 ohm for a 4 ohm one. While on this subject, the WATT manual

notes that this 4 ohm speaker has an impe-dance dip to I ohm at 2kHz, which in my view represents a severe imposition to place on any amplifier. The manual suggests that direct-coupled Futterman and similar tubed ampli-

tiers are inappropriate, but gives the OK for other tube models when used on their 4 ohm tap. I have to disagree. A 1 ohm load severely limits the output power from a tube amplifier. For example, a 100W output (I7dBW, 8 ohm)

into a 4 ohm load will typically fall to 7dBW, or 10W in level terms, when faced with 1 ohm.

Simply, this means that the amplifier will clip 10dB earlier if a strong musical signal appears at 2kHz, which is not unlikely, since this fre-

quency is well in the main music power band. Let us also assume a typical case where the

tube output impedance and cable loop are limited to 0.4 ohms. Overall there is a loss of 0.8dB over the whole range, but at the 2kHz

minimum impedance the loss increases to nearly 3dB, this inducing a dip in acoustic fre-quency response of 2.2dB which may well alter the sound of the speaker. Given these observations, I suggest that the

WATTs be used with heavy, low-resistance cable and with low-output impedance, highly

load-tolerant solid-state amplifiers if consis-tent results are to be obtained. More sonic

variation than usual can be expected with dif-fering speaker cables.

Design and Build This compact two-way speaker encloses a small internal volume of approximately 9 litres,

reflex-tuned in the 40Hz region by a ducted port mounted on the rear panel. The main

port used, the "100-400," has a 1" exit of small flow capacity, backed by a sensibly short 2" duct. Larger port-length:duct-diameter ratios encourage rectification and back-pressure distortion.

Built on a diecast magnesium-alloy chassis, I75mm in diameter, the Norwegian SEAS bass unit is fitted with a 1" motor-coil, with a shal-low, near-straight-sided soft-pulp cone of

I25mm effective diameter. The front surface is factory-finished in a damping coating, the surround comprising a synthetic rubber half-

roll. A generous magnet is fitted to give strong electromagnetic control of the bass-reflex loading.

Crossing over at approximately 2kHz, the HF driver is a well-established 1" dome from the French Focal company. Two points are of interest here: This cloth dome has a hard-cured impregnation and performs as a piston to quite high frequencies, in contrast to the early breakup behavior of the soft-dome tweet-ers almost universally used by other manufac-turers. (Generally speaking, these are operating in well-damped resonant modes from 4kHz

upward.) A hard-cloth dome resonance, how-ever, may lie in the 15 to 25kHz range, though potentially it could still be audible (see the test results for the 19kHz peak). The concave form

is also worth mentioning. The edge leads with-out break to a flat polyurethane foam suspen-sion. A concave dome can offer a dispersion

approaching that of a piston disc, with a more uniform off-axis pattern compared with that produced by the usual convex form. The crossover uses the finest polypropylene

capacitors and imported oxygen-free copper, air-core inductors, selected to 0.5% accuracy. The crossover is potted into an aluminum shell to form a rigid, vibration-free structure shielded from external electromagnetic fields such as those from the drivers or the internal wiring. The latter is Monster Cable's time-corrected, special- grade hookup.

Resembling a truncated pyramid, the en-closure has a largely asymmetric anti-parallel

interior which minimizes internal standing waves; whatever remain of the latter are ab-sorbed by an anechoic-grade foam lining plus


a volume fill of polyester fiber wadding. Ex-ternally, both the WATIb and the 2Pi panels are fitted with low-diffraction, open-reticulated, polyester-foam grilles.

Factors responsible for the very low panel readout include the small area of the panels themselves, their high mass and stiffness, the internal seam bracing, and the linked cross-bracing from front to rear (between the driv-ers) as well as front to side. Add in the high-loss bituminous cladding lining the walls, the ef-fect of the consolidated, well-secured cross-

over mass, and the contribution of several strategically placed, heavy slabs of 4ei "-thick lead alloy securely bolted on. Last but by no means least is the panel material itself, which

comprises a very hard, rigid, and relatively well-damped mineral-loaded polymer. The loading is said to be ceramic and mineral, and the panels can be sawn and milled like marble. In fact, it weighs almost too much!

The result is an exceptionally heavy, acous-tically dead structure, providing a perfect, unyielding inertial mass against which the

chosen drive-units can perform to their limit.

Sound Quality This is a striking loudspeaker system, but first

impressions appeared to be contradictory.

How could such a thin-sounding speaker with almost no bass sound so good? It made a val-

iant attempt to blow away my disbelief and convince me that I was wrong and it was right.

The WATTs, fitted with their 2Pi panels, did come close, but in the end I did not succumb.

Those things it does well it does very well indeed, so that you can hardly bear to drag

your mind back to a reasonably balanced ap-preciation of its performance. Once you man-age this, however, significant weaknesses be-

come apparent. The upper midrange, and to a lesser extent the treble, are forward and pro-jected. Interestingly, this did not detract too

greatly from the impression of the stereo depth but it did leave the sound quite deficient in lower-mid foundation. As a consequence, cellos tended to sound like violas, while lower-

mid and upper-bass sounds were emasculated. A further weakness concerned the bass, which did not recover from the depressed lower-mid level, leaving the speaker very subdued in

the bass. Even kettledrum sounded thin and pinched; complex, harmonic-rich, low-fre-quency instruments appeared miniaturized.

This was a serious flaw considering the price of the system, and was not greatly improved by the additional hanging baffle, in my opinion. Depending on the amplifier used, there was

also a touch of hardness on, or edge in, the up-per midrange which was ameliorated by using the Goldmund Mimesis 3 power amplifier and one or two of the other high-current amplifier types such as the Krell. This mid-treble prob-lem was rather amplifier-dependent (due to the impedance characteristic, perhaps?). These matters aside, the WATTs displayed

astonishingly low levels of perceived colora-

tion over the 100Hz to 15kHz range. Cabinet or box coloration seemed to be nonexistent, and it was very hard to believe such clarity could be obtained from a pulp-cone bass-

midrange unit. One can make some correla-tion between good detail and transparency and a "forward" balance, but the WATT went far beyond this association. It breathed detail and

read subtle harmonic shading to such a high degree that complex material was unraveled, allowing an amazingly clear exposition of in-dividual instrumental lines.

Perhaps only personal knowledge of the bass mid-driver allowed me to identify some

slight "cone cry" coloration and a trace of con-gestion in the lower midrange. Aside from the occasional lower-treble glare, I really liked the treble for its speed and detail, and was barely aware of some breathy "zing" high in the range, close to inaudibility. The bass was too light, but what there was

proved to be articulate and tuneful and notice-ably even. Fast bass transients were very well portrayed, if lacking in fundamental power. Given the lack of weight, the WATT did pro-vide excellent rendition of dynamics. The ebb and flow of orchestral scoring was nicely cap-tured, the speaker always sounding agile, fast, and "open."

The degree of focus was so high that this speaker imposed a most critical location on the listener. It was only too easy to find that perfect equidistant location where the sound-stage focus "locked" —there was only room for one head at this position, however! For-tunately, substantially good focus was obtained over a wider-than-usual listening area. Stage width was excellent, reaching beyond left/ right boundaries as defined by the speaker positions, while the superb transparency al-lowed the mind to reach well beyond the


plane of the speakers to perceive considerable depth in appropriate recordings.

Notwithstanding the rather forward, close-

up presentation, the WATT showed no diffi-cult), in delineating the more subtle depth-

perspective layerings of large orchestral re-cordings. My initial reactions to the WATT, based on

the Chicago '87 CES, described a dark block of transparent glass, possessing considerable depth, but on listening to the WATTs at home, I was reminded of the image of a reflection in a convex mirror: somehow smaller, brighter, and sharper, yet still showing good depth perspectives. The clarity and transparency were continu-

ing delights, but ultimately I failed to come to terms with the lack of bass and the thin, light midrange. Adding a subwoofer will slow the speedy bass, and cannot cure the midrange tonality imbalance. However, the added low-frequency weight will improve the overall performance.

Experiments with a Cello Audio Palette

showed that it was possible to "flatten" the WATT in free space by programming the ap-

propriate levels of boost in the low mid and bass range—typically +4 to +6dB, according to speaker and subject positions. Given the in-evitable small losses in the Palette, the WATT could then sound well balanced without too great a loss in impact, life, or transparency

though the resulting system would not be able to play as loud. Such exercises are, however, self-defeating, and for review purposes, one has to take the product as it comes.

Test Results Given the 1 ohm value for the impedance in-dicated by the specification, I first looked at the impedance characteristic to see whether

it was really as difficult as indicated. On the

normal chart my bottom line is I ohm; on the first run, the pen fell way below the line at

2kHz, impacting the limit stop. I then upranged by 10dB to set the base line at 0.32 ohms, and the WATT loading just kissed the 0.33 ohm level at 2kHz (fig.1). In some disbelief I felt the

need to recalibrate the system and go for a manual static measurement; however, the same result was obtained, to within 2% accuracy. So there it is, the WATT presents an inexcus-

ably difficult load over a very narrow fre-quency notch.

In fact, it was so low that many cable sets will provide some partial protection, typically raising the impedance to a total of 0.5 ohm.

For some reason, Wilson has chosen to suck out electrical energy in the crossover by a parallel tuned circuit—perhaps to correct the phase/amplitude response at the crossover frequency between the two drivers. Such a cir-cuit, if unbuffered by a series crossover ele-ment, will go to nearly zero resistance at res-onance—the residual value measured is the product of the speaker's internal wiring, the equivalent series resistance of the resonant capacitor, plus the winding resistance of the corresponding resonant inductor. Such a nar-row notch implies a strongly reactive phase angle for the loading in the 2kHz region, al-

most purely inductive on one slope and capac-itative on the other.

Taken as a worst case, let us assume that the speaker is driven at a 100W (20dBW, 8 ohms) level for peak loudness. A peak current of 10A is drawn by the main 4 ohm loading at one fre-quency If two frequencies peak simultaneously, 20A is necessary, this demand becoming in-creasingly unlikely statistically with an increase in the number of simultaneous peak-level fre-quencies. Now consider a steady violin or pic-

WILSON WATT 10

Modulus of Impedance in Ohms

FIG. 1 0 20 SO 100 In QQS 111. .21c

Frequency in Hz 51. tor 55.

1)2 Stereophile, February 1988

colo tone at 2kHz momentarily at full level,

and assume we are using a closely positioned monoblock power amplifier with short low-resistance speaker wiring. The peak current will now try to hit 120A—in all probability, the amp will fail to deliver. What is the outcome?

Momentary current clipping will occur, only when and if a high-level signal sits precisely on 2kHz.

Music is a dynamic phenomenon—notes run up and down the scale and very few hold

any single pitch for any length of time. We have a statistical phenomenon where the amplifier is likely to clip very occasionally, almost un-

predictably in the upper midrange. The sub-jective effect is hard to predict, and will largely depend on the amplifier's speed of recovery from current overload. If rapid, the clipping may pass virtually unnoticed, but if electrical

protection is fitted, it may trigger those cir-

cuits. If the overload recovery is poor, then the amplifier sound will be degraded in many areas, including those of tonality and focus.

Objectively, the effect of such narrow-band clipping is to add occasional "splashes" of rich odd-order harmonics to upper-mid notes, ex-tending up into the treble over at least two octaves. Dynamics can be affected, since tran-

sients in the 2kHz region will sound "faster" and more exciting. Subjective "expansion" ef-fects may be created by the added modulation

in the treble range. Since most recording sys-tems are to some degree compressive in the upper register, this might be falsely interpreted

as a performance enhancement on the part of the loudspeaker.

Given this impedance result, I can only

reiterate my opinion that only the largest of amplifiers with a really healthy output will give consistent results with the WATT. One factor serves to mitigate the wicked im-

pedance, however. The sensitivity was higher

than spec at an effective 91dBA for a nominal 8 ohm WATT. Thus high-power inputs are not needed to give respectable in-room sound levels. For example, a modest 400Wpc peak from a robust 100-200Wpc power amp will provide a worthwhile sound level of 102dBA for a stereo pair in an 80m3 room. The worst-case peak current will then be about 70A, just within reach of amplifiers such as the bigger Krells.

While on the subject of impedance, the curve offers further confirmation. In the main range.

it lay at 5 ohms—no problem—while the low-frequency area told us about the loading (with

the DF 100-400 port). Box resonance lay at a high 80Hz, while the port was fairly weakly

tuned at 40Hz in quasi-Butterworth alignment, deliberately overdamped to avoid any chance of transient overhang or boom. Frequency responses were taken in free

space (no Beard) on the forward axis at the recommended angle (fig.2), also at 5° above (fig.3), and for interest's sake, on an axis per-pendicular to the angled baffle (fig.4), the latter

the axis available to the listener when the

speaker is placed directly on the floor. Inter-estingly with our test amplifier and test level, 1W, plus low-resistance cable (Siltech pure

silver), no trace of an acoustic response dip was evident at 2kHz. What was evident was the characteristic rising response of an une-qualized bass-mid driver, the output clearly designed for a 2Pi loading reinforcement rather

;a

-St

611.4:::g; . Il. :" ST."'" "n"

el . %;eq." MIPS 14-46 ..-36.46 Inv STOP. 40 00. I

FIG. 2 Freespace frequency response, recommended axis

;le 611,1 OCT emu. IA der 111,IflS1; FROM

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FIG. 3 Freespace frequency response, 5° above recommended axis iii 611,3 OCT TT0T0,:eni:n " .1' See:: "«"R

1

---i-f---' In_r

- 1

IliqUelt " ,C1M,1.1i.15 STOP' AA SIl HR

FIG. 4 Freespace frequency response, per-pendicular to baffle


than the near-4Pi test position. The addition of the Beard did not produce more than the average of 'dB's worth of change in the 150-

400Hz band, though subjectively assessed it seemed to be worth a little more than this. Ex-amining fig.2, the free-field reference line and sensitivity level were defined by the flat mid-bass level at the "dl/DIN" label. The midband

rose to a level 4-5dB higher than this. The treble was more or less to match, with notice-able amplitude lumpiness and signs of a sub-dued peak in the extreme treble. A 1/4 -octave-wide frequency suckout, 6dB deep, occurred

at 2.5kHz. At 5° above the recommended axis (fig.3), the 2.5kHz dip increases to 10dB, and the treble is altered, showing different bumps and more emphasis in the high treble. (This was not unexpected, as the microphone was then closer to the tweeter.) Finally, we reach the geometric "normal" axis in fig.4. There the presence dip was almost corrected, but the mid-treble balance was awry.

Based on the reference level at 100-300Hz, the sensitivity was no more than 88dB, but the mid and treble boost placed the subjective loud-ness at the 9IdB level. For this reason, the true sensitivity figure is a matter of interpretation. The 1/3-octave curve in fig.4 was subjected

to narrow-band analysis, the result being shown in fig.5 which has a logarithmic 200Hz-20.2kHz horizontal scale. A significant energy peak can be seen at 5kHz, above which the treble clears up, until it peaks up by 8-9dB around 19kHz. As I am in my late thirties, I would find this peak almost inaudible, except at high sound levels, and only when listening directly on this axis (normal to the front panel). However, I cannot vouch for younger listeners, say 25 and under, who in my experience have proven to be surprisingly sensitive to 19kHz pilot tones in the output of FM tuners measured at 30dB below normal modulation. It is unfortunate that this tweeter peak lies on, or very close to, the multiplex pilot-tone frequency. Fig.6 illus-trates the narrow band analysis on the recom-mended axis, clearly showing two response dips.

Considering these graphs (figs.2 through 6), I am led to the conclusion that the WATT has a minimal, or at best low rolloff rate, 6dB/oc-tave crossover, with considerable overlap be-tween the acoustic output of the drivers. Such an overlap will produce the varying responses shown with vertical axis variations, these due to constructive and destructive interference.

-72

* "

FIG. 5 Response perpendicular to baffle, nar row-band analysis

-72

EilLein " vs!:1.3: :iv STO.. 20 VII 01

FIG. 6 Response on recommended axis, nar-row-band analysis

ge

.,, , 0, , ..." ,.sór/..ti ' ." 'it:1' 2 '

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FIG. 7 Forward response family

Fig.7 is my overlay for the acoustic output in the forward sector, showing the recom-

mended axis, plus the 15° vertical and the 30° and 45° lateral off-axis results. An ideal speaker should show an evenly matched set of traces

moderately displaced from the central axial curve. The overall trend to a prominent upper mid was clearly visible, while the 2.5kHz dip was also a constant feature. The precise shape of the treble response was rather axis-depen-dent, making the speaker sensitive to height, specifically the vertical angle made with re-spect to the listener's head. Fig.7 would not be classed as an even set of well-integrated

responses. This graph also includes a nearfield-cor-

rected supplement to the low-frequency re-sponse which defines the bass rolloff. The specified -6dB bass rolloff depends on the chosen sensitivity—if to the reference 88dB,

then it is 60Hz, and if to the subjective 91dBA,

vàry2.211. S.W. PAUSED Corn,.


P',', OCT Ode»GU 13 cl» STOICS, Pauft0

1144:44 On»

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FIG. 8 Room-averaged response

then it is only 80Hz. As the room-averaged

response will show, the WATT does have bass extension to lower frequencies, but not in a form which has much effect on the listener. Looking at the computer-averaged, 64-meas-

urement response relating to the sound per-ceived over the listening position (fig.8), we find much of interest. Note how the individual bumps and dips in the treble have smoothed out, proving that the variations were a driver-interference effect. The 2.5kHz dip (marked by the cursor) has not been fully filled in. The little peak at high frequencies remains; the

response should really be rolling off smoothly at this point. However, the dominant feature was the relative output of the bass and mid-range and how it balanced in the room acous-

tic. It all looked very promising up to a few 100Hz, and the efficacy of Wilson's "no-boom" low-frequency tuning was confirmed. How-ever, above 300Hz, the midrange can be seen to rise in a controlled slope, reaching +6dB by

1.6kHz—the kind of spectral imbalance which cannot be subjectively or objectively ignored.2 The 2.5kHz dip actually helped to redress the balance a little, while the treble was held back

somewhat to avoid excessive brightness. In my opinion, this balance may give correct results when supported by the large, 2Pi-baffle effect

of a studio mixing console, but is inappropriate to free-field domestic use. 1 also feel that the documentary evidence outlined above strongly

2 The WATTS' in-room response powerfully reminds me of some experiments I carried out in 1982 to hiamp the original Celestion 51.6 loudspeaker I constructed an electronic cross-over with the specified 12dB/octave slopes and crossover fluency and drove the drive-units independently The sound suffered from exactly the rising midrange character noted hy MC in this review of the U'ATTs. The reason was that a series resistor in the low-pass section of Celestion's original passive crossover—or it may just have been the winding resistance of the series inductor—interacted with the woofer/midrange unit's inductance to give the exact equalization necessary to compensate for the unit's intrinsic rising response through the upper midrange; my electronic equivalent gave the listener the raw driver responses. —JA

supports the results obtained during the au-ditioning.

Conclusion As I once said in a review of an early Decca cartridge, this product presents a view of Heaven and a glimpse of Hell. Hand on heart, I cannot give the WATT a straight recommen-dation. In major areas, this system produced

the finest performance 1 have yet heard, de-spite or perhaps because of the simplicity of its driver engineering. Such a performance demands a hearing; for most, its superb resolu-

tion of detail, transparency, focus, and depth will all come as a revelation. One cannot real-istically put a price on these aspects. It may well be love at first hearing, and you might sign a check on the spot.

However, if this is the heavenly aspect, then

what about this speaker's darker side? Here there are several aspects to consider, all signifi-

cant. To begin with, we have the most obvious feature, namely the light tonal balance and

distinctly depressed bass—and not just the low bass either. Secondly, there is the erratic performance in varying vertical axes, together

with the possibility of an audible high-treble

peak for younger, more acute listeners (I have good sensitivity only to 17kHz). Last and by no means least, there is the matter of that awk-

ward load impedance, and the corresponding, almost unforgivable dip to 0.33 ohms noted on the review pair.

At the beginning of this report I mentioned loudspeaker landmarks. Despite the negative aspect of the WATT's results, I do consider it to represent just such a speaker. For me, it is

the most perfect exposition of cabinet con-struction, representing a very real proof of the adverse influence the cabinet exerts on so many speakers in current production. The drivers mounted in the WATT reproduce sound

to quite an unsuspected quality level, specific-ally due to the cabinet's thoroughgoing acous-

tical engineering. I hope that this lesson will prove instructive to the rest of the industry; for the present, the WATT amply demonstrates just how superb its enclosure actually is.

It is easy to be wise after the event, but I can-not resist making the following comments. Considering its domestic free-field use: if the

mid were equalized and leveled off at the 86dB level and the treble set to match; if the 2.5kHz dip were solved and the impedance notch


corrected—then what kind of speaker would we have? Its obvious potential, married to a

normal tonal balance, might result in a loud-

speaker which would sweep all before it. As the WATTs stand, however rnv findings

cannot be balanced objectively to provide

a clear conclusion. My conscience is clear —I have provided the facts. From now on, dear reader, you will have to make your own

decision.

SPICA ANGELUS LOUDSPEAKER John Atkinson

Two-way, floor-standing loudspeaker. Bass loading: sealed-box, system resonance at 34Hz with a Q of 0.5. Drive-units: 1" soft-dome tweeter; 8" TPX-coned bass/midrange driver. Crossover frequency: 3.4kHz. Frequency response: 45Hz-175kHz ±3dB (90Hz-15kHz ±1.5dB). Sensitivity: 87dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms (minimum 5.8 ohms at 8.5kHz). Amplifier requirements: 20-200W Dimensions: 46" H by 21" W by 10.25" D. Internal volume: 2.5 cu.ft. Weight: 65 lbs each. Price: $949/pair (oak finish), $995/pair (walnut finish). Approximate number of dealers: 140. Manufacturer: Spica Loudspeakers, 1601 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Tel: (505) 982-1894.

I am puzzled. No, really. I know you find it hard to believe that we sacerdotes of the golden-eared persuasion could ever be per-plexed, but I have been pondering the im-ponderables of ports. Ever since the classic work of Richard Small and Neville Thiele in the early '70s showed how the low-frequency response of any box loudspeaker can be

modeled as an electrical high-pass filter of some kind, with the relevant equations and

data made available to all, there would seem

to be very little reason why all loudspeakers with the same extension should not sound alike (or at least very similar) below 100Hz. Yet after reviewing 20 dynamic loudspeakers (and using 24) in the same room over the last seven months, I am led to the conclusion that speakers vary as much in the quality of their

mid-to-upper bass as they do in any other region. A few are dry, more are exaggerated in

this region; some are detailed and "fast," most are blurred, with the upper bass "slow" (by

which I mean that the weight of bass tone seems to lag behind the leading edges of the

sound). Have I found any empirical correlation be-

tween bass character and design philosophy? Sure. The speakers which I have found to

work best in the mid-to-upper bass in my room use, almost without exception, sealed-box loading for the woofer, and those which work worst are reflex (ported) designs. Now before you all jump to your feet and

accuse me of Anglophilia—after all, you all

know that the English have an inherent love of small, sealed-box loudspeakers-1 must point out that I have no inherent bias against reflex designs. Mathematically, a sealed-box

woofer loading basically gives the speaker a second-order, high-pass filter response, with a 12dB/octave roll-off below its resonant fre-quency; a reflex gives it a fourth-order re-sponse, with a 24dB/octave roll-off. Given an example of each type, with identical sensitiv-

ity, cutoff frequency, and Q of resonance, they should sound pretty much equally good or bad in the bass, apart from the greater phase shift around and below the cutoff point in the reflex design, which equates to less good performance in the time domain. In

fact, the reflex design could even sound bet-ter, due to the woofer cone not having to undergo as much excursion for the same LF SPLs and therefore not introducing as much distortion. Provided that neither speaker is

driven beyond its excursion capabilities (and putting to one side the matter of reinforce-ment of the bass response below the cutoff point by the proximity of room boundaries), the size of each woofer, or its cone material,

and the size of each box will not be relevant to the quality or quantity of bass. Now, of course, you are jumping to your

feet and accusing me of spouting nonsense— everyone knows that bigger speakers give bigger and better bass. Well, sorry, fellas, that just isn't so. The bigger the box, the higher its

sensitivity, and the bigger the cone the more


Spica Angelus speaker

air it can move for a given displacement, both factors endowing the speaker with a greater

dynamic range at low frequencies. But all other factors being equal, all that matters

when it comes to bass quality is cutoff fre-quency and the Q of the bass resonance. So why do I seem to prefer the bass fea-

tured by sealed-box loudspeakers? Answers, please, on a postcard. But in the

meantime, I can only assume that it is easier for a loudspeaker designer to get a consistent

bass tuning in production with a sealed box. The designer may be able to get the same target extension and Q with a prototype

ported system, but the inevitable errors and tolerances in production, coupled with the

inherently less-good time-domain perfor-mance, seem always to raise the Q of the reflex tuning, resulting in too much upper bass and a "slow" overall bass quality. (It is

always possible, of course, that loudspeaker

manufacturers know that out there in the real

world, in dealers' demo rooms, too much bass with too little damping will always help sales. . . Naaah. Surely Stereophile's readers wouldn't be taken in by such blatant sales-manship?)

All of which is by way of an introduction to my review of Spica's new Angelus loud-speaker, only their second full-range model to appear in five years. The previous Spica speaker, of course, was the small two-way TC50 (reviewed in Vol.11 No.!), which has become a best-seller, offering excellent per-

formance at a very competitive price of just

$450/pair. The Angelus, dedicated by its designer John Bau to the memory of Richard Heyser (see my interview with John elsewhere in this issue), was introduced at the Chicago SCES, but only went into full production in the

Fall. Again a two-way design, but now floor-standing, it is significantly larger than the TC50 and is distinguished by its unique "waisted" styling, with hardly a right angle anywhere,

apart from the join between the cabinet rear and the base. The lower two-thirds of the speaker cabinet consist of an elegant trape-

zoidal prism veneered on the front and sides. On the top of that is mounted an inverted trun-

cated pyramid, with the baffle sloping back. The woofer is positioned near to the "waist,"

with the tweeter in-line above it where the baf-fle widens, the placement of the drivers being

asymmetric and handed. Both units are sur-rounded by an acoustic environment of 3/4 "-thick felt, the small cutout for the tweeter being shaped like the transom of a boat.

In his driver choice, John Bau echoes David

Wilson's WATTs by going for relatively mod-est but well-behaved units: a version of the well-known 1" fabric-dome tweeter from Audax, and a TPX-coned 8" woofer, also from Audax. (TPX is a new plastic material

said to have less inherent coloration than polypropylene.) Builders of Dick Olsher's

Dahlia and Dahlia-Debra loudspeakers (see

Stereopbile Vol.9 No.1, Vol.10 No.4) will be familiar with this drive-unit, but John Bau modifies it for use in the Angelus. As sup-plied, the cone has a distinctive rod-shaped dust cap, intended to equalize the airspace either side of the voice-coil. This "rod" was

found to interfere with the tweeter's operat-ing environment by introducing a sharp dis-continuity from which the sound can be


reflected. Spica replaces it with a flat dust-cap

made of felt. Based on extensive work with computer

modeling, the crossover is not as simple as

some, though not nearly as complicated as

those found in "flat-amplitude-response-above-all" designs. Though the high-pass leg for the tweeter is basically first-order, the cor-responding low-pass drive to the woofer is

fourth-order Bessel. This, coupled with the time alignment of the drive-units due to the sloping front baffle, gives what John Bau feels to be the most linear amplitude and phase

response through the crossover region; ie, the output of each driver sums to unity on

the listening axis and the phase angle to 0°. Electrical connection is via sturdy angled binding posts on the black-painted cabinet rear. The base contains bushes for carpet-piercing spikes, which are supplied. As noted by LA in his "Final Word" column

last month, the review pair of speakers was purchased through a dealer, rather than being borrowed from the manufacturer, as is our usual practice.

Test procedure This followed, with minor changes, that es-

tablished for my previous loudspeaker re-views in Stereophile. Amplification was all-Krell — KRS2/KSA-50 —with speaker cables

and interconnect from Monster. Source com-ponents included a Mission PCM 7000 CD player (used both direct and driving a Sony DAS-703ES outboard decoder from its digital output), an up-to-date Linn Sondek/Ittok/ Troika combination (with the latest compos-ite armboard) sitting on a Sound Organization table, an LP12 /SME V/Koetsu Red player sit-ting on a RATA Torlyte stand, and a trusty Revox A77 to play my own master tapes. The frequency response was measured in

the room—spatially averaged across the lis-tening window in order to minimize the ef-fects of low-frequency standing waves—

using 1/4 -octave pink noise at a reference level of 90dB, IkHz; this will also give an idea of the speaker's dispersion characteristic in the upper midrange and treble. In addition, the

nearfield low-frequency response was meas-ured with a sinewave sweep to get an idea of the true bass extension relative to the level at 100Hz. Voltage sensitivity (using the 1/4 -oc-tave pink noise band centered on IkHz and

referenced to the sensitivity of Celestion's SL600) and the change of impedance with frequency were also assessed.

Sound quality The loudspeakers were carefully positioned

for optimum performance, well away from

room boundaries, and coupled to the tile-on-concrete floor beneath the rug with their screw-in spikes. As the speakers are mirror-imaged, the narrower borders to their baffles were placed to the inside, with the speakers

toed-in to the listening position. As the grille follows the line of felt on the front panel, the auditioning was carried out with the grilles in

situ. The Angelus seems to beam relatively se-

verely in the vertical plane: the most neutral response with pink noise seemed to be with the ear level with the tweeter, though there was then a slight mid-treble emphasis; desir-able, I thought, to compensate for a slightly shut-in quality in the top octave, especially with naturally miked strings. Above this axis

the treble became increasingly uneven; by the time the ear is normal to the angled baffle, there is a considerable excess of mid-treble

energy apparent. However, as you would have to be sitting on stacked bar-stools to be

on this axis, or at least standing up, this is not a problem. Below the tweeter axis, the HF rolls off, the exact head position for the right treble balance being quite critical, I found. The bass level also increases once you get below the level of the woofer. This is an unrealistically low seating position, however.

In their manual, Spica recommends a "break-in" period of up to 48 hours before any serious listening takes place. As LA used the speakers first, he set a CD player to con-

tinuously play Dave Grusin tracks through them all night—I'm glad I wasn't around! When they eventually found their way to my

house, I used them for a Saturday night's worth of heavy rock, with SPLs in the high 905—LA's glad be wasn't around! Neverthe-

less, over the three-week period that I used the Spicas, I kept feeling that the bass was continuing to loosen up right up to the mo-ment of booting up the word processor. This should be borne in mind when reading my

description of the character of the low fre-quencies. If the Angelus were a wine, it would definitely be a red Bordeaux, a wine that im-


proves with age. (A good Bordeaux even, but then, that's running ahead.)

After what I felt to be an appropriate break-

in period, I started my serious listening. My initial impressions were that the low to mid-

bass was depressed in level, leading me to suspect a rather more damped alignment than the Q of 0.5 quoted in the specification. This made the speaker sound "smaller" than I had expected from its size, although the definition in the upper bass was excellent. I discussed this apparent shelving-down of the Angelus's LF response with John Bau, who

immediately asked if I had any ASC Tube-Traps in my listening room. I do: four pairs of the 16"-diameter cylinders in the room cor-ners to smooth out the upper-bass room sound, as well as various rugs hanging on the

walls behind the listening chair to suppress

reflections. Bau explained that the Angelus was intended to be used in rooms rather more live than mine and recommended I remove the "flibe-Traps. I did so: though the low frequencies then had more weight, this was at the expense of upper-bass smoothness.

In the end I compromised by putting back enough Traps to civilize the room's low end. Ultimately, though, as I said above, the mid-to upper bass kept improving during the time

I used the speakers—presumably the suspen-sion was getting more compliant —and by the time I stared to write the review, I was not

having any problem with the quality of low bass. Generous it wasn't —the Angelus will never be a first-choice speaker for parties dedicated to destroying brain cells with un-healthy doses of Twisted Sister or Motley Crue. But it gave enough extension to make

organ recordings with real low bass (my reference in this respect is an LP including Karg-Elert's Homage to Handel, recorded by Michael Woodward in Liverpool Cathedral, England) musically satisfying. It had also developed sufficient levels of the "purr" on bass guitar and plucked double-bass that I feel necessary to suitably underpin the music.

It is in the midrange, however, that the Angelus excels, and the reproduction of human voice in particular. Baritone voice, Airrion Love, for example, on the verse of that

classic Stylistics track You Make Me Feel Brand New," did not suffer from the "after-

boom" so common with ported speakers at this price level. The Angeluses—Angeli? —

also had the ability to present naturally sized voice images, there being a refreshing free-dom from "image bloat."

My recording of the Polish pianist Anna-Maria Stanczyk playing Chopin's Waltz in C-sharp minor found its way on to the HFN/RR Test CD. Each phrase of the main melody with an upward-running scale, from the A above middle C to a C# nearly two and a half

octaves higher—the fundamentals ranging from 440Hz to 22I -.5Hz—is the nearest mus-ical analogy to sweeping a test-tone through the region in which many speakers have

severe problems and where music has the bulk of its energy. The presence of cabinet resonances, destructive interference between the direct sound and that reflected from the cabinet rear, and the like, result in some notes leaping forward and others disappearing with this scale. In general, panel speakers, not hav-ing cabinets, manage this passage with nary a

stumble. The Angelus did well here, the tim-bre of the Steinway being reproduced natu-rally. In addition, as with other speakers to grab my fancy, the body of the piano tone was integrated with the initial hammer sound.

This recording is also quite critical regard-ing the reproduction of its soundstage. I

made the recording with a Calrec Soundfield microphone set to crossed figure-eight mode, positioned about 15 feet away from the piano looking down the line of the lid. The piano image should occupy the right-hand side of the stage, the keyboard being just left of center. The reverberant soundfield should

also be nicely defined, placing the piano

distinctly behind the plane of the speakers.

Not many speakers do this: either their tonal quality brings the piano image forward,

bruising the delicate relationship between ambience and direct sound; or they reduce the piano image to a kind of "fat" mono. The

Spicas presented the soundstage as I remem-bered, and as I had wanted.

This ability to decode the recorded sound-stage is presumably due to the care John Bau

has taken over the crossover integration be-tween the drive-units, though I don't think

that this is the only parameter to so correlate: relatively narrow-baffled loudspeakers such as the IS3/5A, Celestion SL6S/SL600/SL700 family, and Monitor Audio R952MD also possess this ability. The Angelus is superb in this respect, nevertheless. I tried it with a


recording of an unaccompanied choir singing Thomas TaIlis's "Calvary Mount," which I had made using an ORTF technique. Again, this recording's soundstage is fragile, presumably due to the fine balance struck between time and amplitude imaging, often either sound-ing bloated and diffuse or too monophonic, depending on the speaker. The Angeli pre-sented it as I had intended it to appear—the singers strung in an arc across the center two-thirds of the stage, surrounded by the church acoustic. The ultimate test in this area is a recording

made. by the BBC of Palestrina's Missae Pa-pae Marcelli (BBC Records CD 572). This analog original, recorded in the Vatican's Sistine Chapel, is a recreation of the Pontifical High Mass of St. Sylvester as it might have been performed on New Year's Eve 1631, using a double choir. To say that it has a reverberant quality is an understatement: the sound of the unaccompanied male voices rolls gently around the chapel. . . and around . . . and around, almost to the point where in-telligibility is lost among the swell. With most speakers, the qualifier "almost" is unneces-sary; with the Angelus, the voices are sepa-rated enough from their associated wash of reverberation that they remain intelligible, more effectively transporting the listener to Rome. There are some areas where the Angelus's

performance reflects its relatively modest price. The lack of air, of transparency, above 8kHz was a disappointment after my experi-ences with the better metal-dome tweeters featured by the Celestion SL600/700 and Monitor Audio R952MD. And despite the overall neutrality of the midrange, I occa-sionally caught a glimpse of a hollowness to the sound, somewhere around 600-700Hz. In addition, record ticks and scratches ac-quired a slight HF emphasis, something I found surprising considering the neutral quality of the treble. The relatively limited dynamic range also caught me out more often than I would have liked: my room is somewhat lively in the upper midrange and treble, and there was a distinct threshold with the Angelus where the HF hardened, acquir-ing a gritty quality. Whether this was due to distortion in the tweeter, or to the off-verti-

cal-axis brightness finally dominating the room sound at the expense of the direct,

more neutral, balance, I haven't got the in-strumentation to determine. It did, however, impose a top loudness limit a little lower than I would have liked.

Measurement Measured nearfield, the -6dB point referred to the level at 100Hz was a highish 41Hz, though the rate of rolloff was shallow, imply-ing a somewhat overdamped alignment. The spatially averaged room-response also re-vealed the low frequencies to be a little light-weight, there being a lack of energy in my

room—which normally reinforces the mid-to-upper bass—right up to 200Hz. The rate of roll-off was gentle, however, as there was still significant output, albeit 10dB down, at 31.5Hz (though the woofer was audibly work-ing very hard at this frequency and level).

The response sounded a little resonant in the 200Hz V3 -octave band, with a dip at

250Hz, but above that frequency, the in-room response was essentially fiat ( ± 0.8dB) from the lower midrange up to 5kHz or so, and sounded very clean. The treble was also relatively flat, apart from a prominence in the 5kHz and 6.3kHz bands, due, I am sure, to the contribution to the reverberant soundfield in the room from the accentuated output in this region above the listener's head. As with other designs featuring this relatively large-diaphragm tweeter, the final octave rolled off a little early, the in-room -6dB point being at 16kHz (though note that this is a relative measure only, the exact roll-off, dependent on room furnishings and distance from the speakers to the listening seat, being unique to each room). Pair-matching appeared excel-lent, while the horizontal dispersion seemed even and well-controlled. The impedance plot showed that the An-

gelus is well-behaved, rarely dropping below 8 ohms apart from a drop to 5.2 ohms around 8kHz. It should work well even with highish-output-impedance tube amplifiers. The LF resonance was of low Q, but positioned a lit-tle lower than spec at around 30Hz. Measured sensitivity at lkHz was spot on at 87dB/W/m. Unless you have a small room, I recommend using 100W amplifiers with the Angelus.

To sum up Long-awaited, the Angelus is not only the best speaker John Bau could design to sell for


$1000, it is one of the best speakers I have

heard, not only at this price but among those

costing up to twice as much. This is not to say

it's perfect: the ultimate dynamic range is

more restricted than you might think for a

loudspeaker standing nearly four feet tall, and there is a lack of air—sparkle, if you will—in

the top octave. The bass, however, makes up

in quality what it lacks in absolute quantity—

though its level and tuning mean that careful

audition in the listener's own room and sys-

tem will be mandatory. The soundstaging

abilities are excellent, not only in lateral and depth definition, but in presenting believable

instrumental images within the soundstage.

The forte of the Angelus, however, is in its

reproduction of voice—utterly natural. In-deed angelic! Recommended.

TRIPLE PLAY Thomas J. Norton reviews loudspeakers from Castle, Audio Concepts and Kindel

Kindel Purist LT Drive-units: (2) 61/2" bass/midrange, 1" soft-dome tweeter. Crossover frequen-cies: 300Hz, 2.5kHz. Frequency response: 35Hz-20kHz +3dB. Sensitivity: 90dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 4 ohms. Recommended amplifier power: 20W minimum. Dimensions: 43" H by 13" W by 7" D. Weight: 44 lbs. Price: $850/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 50. Manufac-turer: Kindel Audio, 3615 Presley Ave., Riverside, CA 92507. Tel: (714) 787-0662.

Castle Durham: Drive units: 51/2" bass/mid, 11/4" cone tweeter. Crossover frequency: not specified. Frequency range: 60Hz-22kHz (deviation not specified). Sensitivity: 88dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Recommended amplifier power: 10W minimum. Dimensions: 16" H by 81/2" W by 9" D. Weight: 13 lbs. Price: $525/pair (stands $160/pair additional). Ap-proximate number of dealers: la Importer: May Audio Marketing Ltd., 76 Main Street, Champlain, NY 12919. Tel: (518) 298-4434.

Audio Concepts Quartz: Drive units: 61/2" bass, 2" soft-dome midrange, 1" soft dome tweeter. Crossover frequencies: 1.5kHz, 5kHz. Frequency response: 46Hz-20kHz +3dB. Sensitivity: 87dB/W/m. Nominal impedance: 8 ohms. Recommended amplifier power: 30W minimum. Dimensions: 36" H by 13" W by 12" D. Weight: not specified (estimated 50 lbs). Price: $899/pair, full kit, oak or walnut; $569/pair, w/o enclosures. Approximate number of dealers: Factory Direct only. Manufacturer: Audio Concepts, 1631 Caledonia Street, Box 212, La Crosse, WI 54602. Tel: (608) 781-2110.

JA isn't alone in the quest for a good loud-

speaker under S1000/pair. The flood of prod-

ucts in this price range is far too great for any one person to cover. With three loudspeakers on test here, two more to come in a future

issue, and probably others as yet unforeseen

(the stream is never-ending), perhaps I can

help make sense of a complex jigsaw puzzle

of available loudspeakers.

All of the loudspeakers tested here were auditioned in my large, primary listening room

using a Luxman PD-300/Eminent Technology

II/Monster Alpha 2 combination into a Klyne

SK-5a preamp. Several amplifiers were used,

but in deference to the type of component most likely to be used to drive loudspeakers in this price range, the Adcom GFA-555 pre-

dominated. Interconnects were by Monster

(Interlink Reference A and M-1000), speaker cable was Monster MI. Several CD players were

also used, primarily the American Audio Lab-oratories P-12. The Kindels and the Castles

were also auditioned in a small listening room

(11 x 15 x 8 feet). Here the associated equip-

ment was far more modest: an Audio Con-cepts/Brasfield CD player directly driving

a Parasound HCA-800 amplifier (the latter having its own level controls), with (predom-

inantly) MAS Musicable interconnects and speaker cable.

Kindel Purist LT: $850 There is a problem with the typical bookshelf loudspeaker. To perform at its best, it can't be


used in a bookshelf! It usually needs to be mounted well away from nearby walls, and on sturdy stands. Good stands aren't cheap, which must have occurred to Kindel Audio when they designed their new Purist series. Build a

speaker that doesn't require stands, and the money saved can be spent on a better loud-

speaker to begin with. The Kindel Purist LT is, as a result of this

thinking, a moderately tall, monolithic, floor-standing design. The three drivers are mounted near the top the enclosure in a vertically sym-metrical arrangement: the tweeter is centered, at about ear level, and the two polypropylene-coned bass/midrange drivers are active up to 300Hz; above that frequency, the lower one is rolled off. The other continues up to the mid/tweeter crossover point (2500Hz). An 8" passive radiator at the bottom front of the cab-inet identifies the LT as a ported reflex design. Crossover slopes are first-order (300Hz) and third-order (2500Hz); the rather complex di-viding network also has extra elements for level matching (including a rear panel-mounted tweeter level control), impedance compensa-tion, and wave shaping (passive equalization

to compensate for inevitable driver irregu-larities). The active drivers extend out about V4"

from the front face of the enclosure on heavy

foam, which appears to be used primarily for creating an airtight seal; it's too dense to be of much value in diffraction control. But this slight protruding of the drivers does appear to reduce the possibility of diffraction from both the side-wood trim (which extends out slightly at the front of the enclosure) and the grille frame. I nevertheless did all of my listening with the latter removed. At the bottom of the enclosure, two spiked feet give added stability to this otherwise rather top-heavy design.

On audition, the top octave of the 1:B seemed a bit soft—that last bit of openness and "air" just wasn't there. I was also troubled by an ap-parent lack of weight in the lower midrange— the power region. Reproduction of a sym-phony orchestra at full bore lacked impact; brass, the ballast of the orchestra and a clear test of this problem, sounded pinched, lacking the weight and foundation needed for a truly convincing illusion of the real thing. On simpler material, however—voices,

small ensembles, and the like—played back at

reasonable levels, the LT had a great deal more

Kindel Purist LT speaker

going for it. Its high end, as noted above, may not have provided the last word in detail, but was nevertheless clean, sweet, and well in-tegrated. There was no sensation of a tweeter crying for attention. I experimented briefly with the rear level control; its action was mild but I invariably preferred the mid setting.

Apart from the lack of sheer weight and dynamics in the lower midrange already dis-cussed, the remainder of the LT's midband was very low in coloration. Boxiness, nasality, honkiness—none of these adjectives came to mind during my auditions. The Kindel's depth and imaging were not,

as you might expect, state-of-the-art. But they


were more than adequate to give a pleasing sense of space and soundstage—certainly bet-ter than the norm at this price. Only as the level was cranked up past the mid 90s did these qualities start to deteriorate; the Kindels will play at what I consider to be comfortably loud levels, but are not designed to break a lease.

The bass of the LTs won't knock you off of

your chair with sheer impact, and it rolls off, subjectively, below about 45Hz. But it doesn't

disappear below that point, and there is a sen-sation of things happening in the region below 40Hz. Bass drum, though down in level, is clean and detailed. Even in my large room, respectably high levels (low 90s) could be

reached without woofer bottoming or obvious distortion. But the LTs did have trouble with one of my bass torture-tests; "Psychopomp"

from Dafos (Reference Recordings RR-12 CD). This selection is a nearly continuous, low growling; it is not included on the LP and I

suspect it may have been too difficult to cut properly without using up too much scarce (45 rpm) groove space. The LTs' woofers didn't bottom or break up, but they did make some

rather pained chuffing noises in protest to this cruel treatment—noises which sounded like air rushing furiously through leaks that the speakers never knew they had. This was the

only time the Kindels refused to behave them-selves in the low end. Midbass, similarly, was unexaggerated, with a good balance of warmth and detail.

Most of my comments to this point relate to the way the LTs sounded in a large listening

room. What of a smaller space? Essentially, my observations were similar. The more modest driving system used in this secondary environ-ment did not appear to compromise the LTs'

strengths to a notable degree. I did hear what appeared to be a trace of midrange nasality on some program material, and the midbass seemed to be a bit more recessed. The deep bass was more impressive in the smaller environment, the high end just as clean. At any tolerable listening level (which for me, in this room,

meant mid-90dB range), the LTs refused to bite or glare. I consider them suitable for listening rooms of any reasonable size. With the single notable exception of their

lower-midrange recessiveness, the greatest

strength of the LU is, in my judgment, balance. They lack the last word in openness and trans-

parency, yet have good, unexaggerated detail. They don't overwhelm you with presence or sock; they refuse to hype any aspect of the sound, and never offend. They aren't dramatic in their sense of depth or imaging, yet do pre-sent a good soundstage. They won't make you feel you've suddenly acquired megabuck de-tail, dynamics, and overall realism on the cheap. But you don't really expect to find a loudspeaker with those qualities for $850/pair,

do you? What you do have a right to expect is a loudspeaker whose flaws don't seriously detract from its considerable strengths. If you listen primarily to large-scale symphonic and

choral music, the Purist LT may not qualify. Otherwise, however, you should give it a serious audition.

Castle Durham: $ 52 5 Unless you're a loyal reader of the British audio

press, or scrutinize the pages of the Audio an-

nual directory edition with a depth more befit-ting a study of the great literary works of the

Western world, you may be unfamiliar with Castle Acoustics. Since I confess to both weak-

nesses, I have heard of them, but until my overworked UPS man presented me with a pair of Castle Durhams, I had never actually

auditioned any of their products.

The Durham is a small, two-way system of rather conventional appearance. It is a ported, reflex design, rather lightweight but reinforced

by a simple internal cross-brace and damp-ened on the side walls by bituminous pads. The overall finish of the cabinets is excellent; the review pair were black ash wood veneer. Rear connections are via five-way binding

posts, spaced to accept double banana plugs (very unusual in British loudspeakers, which generally are spaced to accommodate only single plugs). The paper-coned bass/midrange

driver is specified as 61/2 " in the Audio direc-tory; it is actually closer to 51/2 ". The tweeter is a 11/2 " plastic-cone design. The crossover

frequency of the 12dB/octave dividing net-work is unspecified, but my elves place it at or near 2kHz. The grille is of frameless, self-supporting foam construction and was left in place during the listening tests. Audition of the Durhams took place with

the loudspeakers mounted on Castle's match-ing stands. The lightweight Durhams were not particularly stable atop these stands; double-sided carpet tape was used to secure the two.


Castle Durham speaker

The stands were spiked. I have had difficulty in the past in obtaining adequate rigidity with lightweight, stand-mounted speakers; the Cas-tles were very much in this category A reason-

ably firm mounting was finally obtained; heav-ier stands would likely be an improvement, and probably wouldn't be significantly more expensive. At an optional $160, Castle's own stands, though well finished, strike me as dis-

tinctly overpriced. In my large listening room, the Durhams

weren't exceptionally open sounding, but as long as listening levels were moderate they produced a reasonably large soundstage. Their

balance was generally neutral, never sounding consistently forward or laid-back but varying with the program material. Soundstaging was

fair to good, as was detail, but neither was competitive with the better mini-monitors in

this price class. The Star of Wonder (Reference Recordings RR-21, LP), a very fine choral re-

cording, lacked any sense of individual voices within the overall sonic fabric. Dynamic range and transient response were only fair. On, for example, the Rachmaninov Piano Concerto 2

(Chesky CR-2, LP), the leading edges of the piano, which are quite distinct on this record-ing, were noticeably rounded and lacking in impact on the Castles. On the plus side, how-ever, except for a trace of badness, overall col-oration (at reasonable listening levels) was low. Overall, the midband reproduction of the Dur-hams was definitely better than expected from

their rather modest bass/midrange driver, but not dramatically better. The high end of the Durhams is, in my opin-

ion, their strong suit. The highest frequencies aren't in the class with the best tweeters, even the best conventional tweeters, in overall trans-

parency and dispersion, but had a liveliness and openness that I found very appealing. I occasionally heard a trace of hardness (especi-ally at higher levels), and upper-octave detail was slightly smeared (on, for example, the brushed cymbals in Serendipity on the Refer-ence Recordings RR-20 CD), but sibilants were admirably clean and unexaggerated, and the overall balance and smoothness of the treble were very good.

At the low end, or rather the lack of it, the Castles ran into real difficulties. There simply was no depth or impact to the bass response. Its a tribute to the smooth, unexaggerated high-frequency balance of the loudspeaker that it did not sound bright or pinched, but from the midbass on down the sound lacked body. Tenor sax resembled alto, male voices were thinned out, bass drum was a shadow of its real self. The bass that remained was clean, but a very subdued bass usually is. Even in this price range, a better low end is mandatory. I next moved the Durhams to my smaller

listening room to see how they would respond there. Their size and general design character-istics, in fact, suggest that they would be more comfortable in a more intimate soundspace. And so they were, especially in their ultimate output capability, yet their essential sonic characteristics were much as before: fair to good soundstaging, moderately low midrange coloration with fair detailing, very nice high end, and a thin bass response.

If I have been hard on the Durhams it's not because I disliked them. Not at all—their weaknesses, by and large, were subtractive. And the Castle has one of the better tweeters I have heard in a relatively low-cost system. My major problem is with the Durhams' cost. There's some serious competition in this price range—JA's recommendations in the latest of his recent speaker surveys (Von' No.1 p.128) will give you a short list to start from, to which I might add the bottom-of-the-line Vander-steens 18s ($650, but no stands required) and Snell Ks ($450), as well as models from Kindel (P-200, $585; Purist ST, $555). I really don't feel that the Durhams can compete in this


price class, due primarily to their bass short-comings. They would be a reasonable sonic value at $3004350, and indeed Castle does have a slightly smaller model in that category —the Clyde, —which appears to use the same tweeter as the Durham. It might be worth in-vestigating if your budget is severely constrained. But !can't really recommend the Durham over its competition; it's not a bad loudspeaker, just a bad value.

Audio Concepts Quartz: $869 ($569 minus cabinet) Audio Concepts is a small, primarily mail-order company that has been in operation for several years, marketing selected loudspeaker

drivers from various manufacturers, including at least one (soon to be two) woofer(s) designed

to their own specifications, and an extensive line of kits based on these drivers. I have been perusing their catalogs off and on for a cou-

ple of years, not to mention some other in-teresting design literature which they have available, and found their three-way Quartz to be more interesting, conceptually, than your typical sub- $1000 box loudspeaker.

Audio Concepts was receptive to a review, so in reasonable short order several boxes ar-rived from the far reaches of the upper mid-west. Unfortunately, UPS had done their magic trick on the cabinets; both arrived damaged. The damage to one was relatively minor—a hairline crack in an unexposed portion of the

particle-board woodwork which was repaired by yours truly with a generous application of epoxy. The other was a hopeless case: in ad-dition to several serious cracks along cabinet

seams, the solid oak top was split neatly in two along the grain. Scratch one cabinet, return to

Wisconsin. In fairness to UPS, the packaging of the Quartz cabinets could have used more padding (it has since, I am told, been rein-forced), and the cabinets, in their semi-assem-bled state (the back was only loosely attached,

substantially reducing the rigidity of the overall structure), flexed more easily than when fin-ished, inviting splitting at critical junctures. Cut to a few weeks later. The replacement

cabinet arrives intact, complete with a com-

plement of new drivers. It seems that the mounting centers of the drivers vary enough

I Any company that can name one of its loudspeakers the "Clyde" certainly deserves wider recognition!

from sample to sample that Audio Concepts

custom-drills each cabinet for the supplied drivers. Of course Murphy was 'on hand to help unpack the new drivers and cabinet. AC, unfortunately, labeled the former but not the

latter; the old shell game was played, and I lost track of which group of drivers went with which boxes. Not to worry, though. My best guess seemed to be an adequate fit.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Since this system is a kit, you have a right to an explana-tion of why and how. Why build a kit, and how did it go together? Why is easy—money.

Buying a kit directly from a manufacturer saves you the cost of a middleman and the cost of final assembly and finishing. It's still nowhere near as cheap as designing and building your

own loudspeaker from scratch, but that's a dif-ferent ballgame entirely.

The "how" could take me several pages, but in light of the final result I'll be less verbose. Assembly of the Quartz, if you buy the version with assembled cabinets (a parts kit is also available, with cabinet plans, for the sawdust-and-glue set), consists of installing the internal and external precut foam, mounting the pre-wired crossover and routing the wires, sealing various potential leaks with foam tape (not

supplied) and silicone sealing compound (sup-plied, but in a squeeze tube—I strongly rec-ommend that a builder purchase a caulking

gun and suitable supply of sealant for easier application), mounting the drivers and duct

damper (called a Variovent here), and screwing in the back of the cabinet (using caution not to foul the crossover wires—easy to do). It's a bit more time-consuming than it sounds, though not at all difficult. No soldering is re-quired; the drivers are connected with push-on terminals. (I prefer soldered connections, but Audio Concepts voids the warranty on the drivers if you do that, so I assembled the loud-

speakers as recommended.) There are some rough spots and omissions in the instructions (see Postscript), but a reasonable dose of com-mon sense should see you through.

The drivers used in the Quartz are high-quality Dynaudios. These are more expensive units than you're likely to find in any loud-speaker under $2000/pair, much less under $1000. The cabinet is a bit difficult to describe, but the photograph will give you a good idea of the design (the corners of the interior cab-inets are more rounded than shown). The


Audio Concepts Quartz speaker

midrange and tweeter are stepped back from the woofer for time-alignment. The outside of the sub-enclosures are completely covered in foam to reduce external reflections, with the curious exception of the step-back shelves directly beneath the midrange and tweeter. I cut some spare pieces of foam (furnished) to fit these shelves, and it noticeably reduced

midrange/tweeter colorations; all of my listen-ing observations relate to the system with these extra foam pads in place. The underside of the top of the external

cabinet, which overhangs the internal array,

is covered with a triple layer of foam. Only the front wooden support dowels, which connect the top and bottom of the external enclosure, are unpadded and pose a potential source of

unwanted reflections—aggravated by the fact

that the dowels are not round, but have a flat face aimed directly at the drivers. Separate grilles are furnished for the front and sides; in the review pair they were far too massive, add-ing substantially to the reflective surfaces in front of the drivers. All of my listening was done with them removed. Since I wrote the review, the manufacturer has since redesigned the grille as a one-piece design to reduce this problem; I have not seen the revised version. The crossover for the Quartz is all first-

order. Biwiring is provided for by an extra set of terminals in the rear. The speakers appear to be a floor-standing design, but the manufac-turer recommends raising them about 10" off the floor on suitable stands. In my listening en-vironment I got the best results from the loud-speakers by leaving them on the floor but rais-ing the front of the cabinet via a single TipToe —placing the listener on the tweeter axis of the toed-in loudspeakers. Ràising them off the floor thinned out the bass end too much, em-phasizing the already troublesome colorations in the midband. I have some serious reservations about the

sound of the Quartz, but let's start out on a positive note. These babies are dynamic. They have a gutsy, forward, punchy sound that is completely at odds with typically laid-back "audiophile" loudspeakers. They'll play very loud, even in a large room, without turning mushy or congested through the midrange. The high end is clean and open—typical of the Dynaudio D-28AF tweeter (also used by Syn-thesis and Thiel). The low end is a bit more problematical.

The Quartzes don't sound seriously thinned out, but the lowest bass is definitely not there. Mid and upper bass are reasonably well de-fined, though there seems to be some lumpi-ness and a bit of boxiness as plucked bass, for example, is varied in pitch. The Siefert IIID, to

cite one example, with a smaller box and less expensive driver, definitely had, for me, the more impressive low end. Audio Concepts

calls the Quartz a transmission line, but it's more of a damped reflex. If it is a quarter-wavelength design, as claimed, then it's tuned to about 90Hz (its length is just over three feet),

with a line cross-sectional area much too small for a classic transmission line. In any event, Audio Concepts recognizes that the deep bass of the Quartz is not particularly extended; they recommend a subwoofer for best results, and


I definitely agree. (They make four different subwoofer designs—the smallest has been promised for a future review.)

If I could stop here, I could recommend the Quartz. But there's had news in the midrange. A trace of13oxiness and "Aww" coloration, not too serious in this price range, is evident in the lower midband. Higher up the scale, less tol-erable things start to happen. The Quartz may be dynamic and exciting, but it can turn un-pleasant with little provocation. On Star of Wonder, the chorus took on a definite glare and edge as the level increased. Catch the Brass Ring—Favorite Music front an Old Fashioned Merry Go Round (Klavier LP KS-566), a superb recording of the vanishing Wur-

litzer Band Organ, was certainly lively sound-ing through the Quartz—no wimp factor

here—but it was also hard and rather colored. James Boyk's LP recording of the Prokofiev Sixth Piano Sonata (Performance Recordings PR-3) is an impressive solo piano disc, and the

weight, solidity, and dynamics of the instru-ment came through very nicely on the Quartz, but so did a certain electronic bite and edge. The tam-tam at the end of side 1 of Church

Windows (Reference Recordings LP RR-I5), through a smooth loudspeaker, is metallic yet clean, with a stunning output of mid- and

high-frequency energy. The Dynaudio drivers

in the Quartz have far higher power handling than the drivers in the Snell Ci, and should have coasted through this passage with ease.

But the Snell (no longer in-house but well remembefed) handled this passage with aplomb. On the Quartz, it's hard and glary. Why? Un-suspected peaks in the ostensibly superior Dynaudios? Overloading of the drivers below their crossover points with the slow-slope, first-order crossovers? I don't know, but the problem, to me, is not a small one. Rock fans might take more kindly to the Quartz, yet I found that the inherent hardness of most rock recordings and the hardness I heard in the Quartz didn't combine into an enjoyable ex-perience.

You're unlikely to be able to audition the Quartz for yourself, short of hearing a friend's (several hundred of the systems have been

sold) or making a personal trek to the near Great White North. Audio Concepts does have

a 30-day, money-back guarantee (but you pay shipping both ways), which takes some of the risk out of buying kits sound unheard. I do

recommend the Audio Concepts catalog; they have a number of other interesting systems and subwoofers which might arouse your interest. I like their way of doing business, and I like their helpful attitude (I have ordered several small items from them as an individual, not as a reviewer). Unfortunately, I cannot, at present, recommend the Quartz.

Postscript: building the Quartz While the instructions that Audio Concepts provides with the Quartz are adequate to get

you through, there were a few rough spots. I

have passed on my observations to the manu-facturer, but in the event they don't make their way into the manual, I offer them here to

potential purchasers:

1) The instructions ask you to finish the cabinets last. I recommend finishing them first. If you use steel wool for the final wood finish (generally recommended for almost any stain/ oil/varnish I know of), this will allow you to thoroughly clean up (preferably with a vac-

uum) any steel finishings that remain before they find their way to the magnets (and pos-sibly the voice coils) of the drivers.

2) Mount the crossover network right-side up! 3) Before sealing the routing holes to the

midrange and tweeter, be sure to allow enough slack in the leads coming through these holes

to permit complete removal of the drivers from the cabinet, otherwise you'll have a dif-ficult time attaching the terminals (difficult enough in my case—they're a tight fit).

4) The negative driver leads in my sam-

ples were white, not black as stated in the instructions.

5) When you unpack the drivers from their

boxes, use caution. They're well packed, but the midrange, in particular, is prone to having

the styrofoam padding separate like a clamshell when removed, possibly dropping the un-protected dome into your awaiting hand. The sheer mass of the driver makes this more than a remote possibility.

6) The drivers must he tightened carefully into the cabinet. The screws will strip if you

go about this with too much gusto—the in-structions do caution you on this. If your screws should strip, use the old toothpick trick: drop one or two short pieces of a tooth-pick into the stripped hole and retighten. The woofer is fastened in with Allen-head bolts

(the appropriate wrench is not provided—and


should be!). Overtightening these does not risk

stripping threads, but does risk deforming the woofer basket. Toothpicks won't help here.

7) If you have, or can borrow, a power drill, drill pilot holes in the rear of the cabinet before

screwing it down. Otherwise it's an arm-wrenching job. AC should consider predrilling

these holes. 8) The foam on the exterior of the cabinet

is designed to be set in place with the silicone sealer furnished. I had the bright idea of us-

ing spray glue. It worked OK, but the foam

could be pulled off easily. A bright idea that wasn't so bright. Follow AC's directions.

Conclusions There are always conclusions. Mine are sim-ple, and should be obvious from the reviews. The Kindel Purist LT is the clear winner in this

faceoff, and I can confidently add it to the list of loudspeakers under $1000 which should de-mand your attention.

AR POWERED PARTNER LOUDSPEAKER Bill Sommerwerck

AR Powered Partner speaker

Miniature self-powered two-way loudspeaker system in triangular cast-aluminum cabinet. Drive-units: 4" plastic-doped paper woofer/midrange, 1" plastic tweeter. Peak SPL: at least 106dB at 1m (AC power). Output power: 15W at less than 1% THD (AC power). Sensitivity: 500mV for maximum output. Input impedance: 10k ohms. Controls: power. volume, and bass-boost. Power source: AC (built-in), DC (9-16V through car lighter adapter, or optional gelled-electrolyte pack). Dimensions: 6" H x 10.5" W x 75/8" D. Price: S380/pair (widely and heavily discounted). Approximate number of dealers: 200. Manufacturer: Teledyne Acoustic Research, 330 Turnpike St., Canton, MA 02021.

Tel: (617) 821-2300.

Betcha thought the personal stereo was in-

vented by Akio Morita, when he asked a Sony

engineer to design a pocket-sized cassette

player so he could listen to music while play-ing tennis. Well, you're wrong, sushi-breath. The personal stereo was invented rat cheer, in

the good ol' US of A, 25 years ago. It was the KLH Model II, a pricey (for that time—$200)

portable phonograph. Dubbed "The Suitcase," the 11 was aimed at

New England preppies who wanted a high-quality portable for vacations, or a second system for the rec room. ("Look, Muffle, a stereo for us!") Much to KLH's surprise, their marketing department discovered that most Model 1 ls were bought by "poor" people who

couldn't afford a component system. KLH rushed a walnut-cabinet version (the 11W) to market, and the "compact" system was born.

Compacts had a good run, until cheap Japa-nese components and the proliferation of junk compacts destroyed the market. Rack systems are the modem equivalent, though when com-pared with the top-of-the-line compacts from

Harman/Kardon and KLH, they strike me as considerably less "honest" products.

So much for history. The way to market tiny products is to start small, then add features

and accessories until the reason for the original compactness is lost. (This happened to 35mm SLRs, until Olympus reversed the trend with

their 0M-1.) Though Sony persists in making


ever-tinier Walkmen, all personal-stereo manu-facturers keep adding feature after feature (record capability, equalizers, stereo mikes, FM

tuners, auto-reverse, solar batteries), regardless of how big the things get.

Perhaps the most idiotic accessories for per-sonal stereos are those wretched little "pocket" speakers (powered or passive). You

cannot believe how awful they sound, yet peo-ple buy them because there are times they'd

rather not listen with headphones. There was an obvious market for such products, and a "quality vacuum" that needed to be filled.

Bose was the first to step in, with their RoomMate system. It's been largely ignored by the hi-fi press, and for good reason. It sounds like what it is—Bose drivers stuffed into little boxes. (The coloration is hollowness, rather

than constriction, a problem the Bose shares with the K II.) The integral amp puts out only a few watts. Since a fair amount of EQ is ap-

plied to get bass from the system, there may be times when this will not be enough power. Bose drivers have good power-handling capability, so this lack of substantial driving power must be considered a deficiency. AR felt they could do a lot better, and the

Powered Partners were born. With their cast-

aluminum cabinets, they're hefty little buggers. Each has its own power supply and amplifier. The power switch, pilot light, volume and bass-boost controls are on the front. A rear inset panel (which also serves as a simple carrying handle) holds an RCA input jack, the AC power connector (the power cord detaches), an ac-cessory AC outlet, and a I4V DC power jack. The Partners' triangular shape was designed

for high volumetric efficiency. They can be

shoved in any nearby corner, for maximum

bass output and minimum wasted space. A rear strip of the cabinet comes off, which can then

be bolted back on, with any convenient l.25"-diameter pole in between.

The Partners are "fully accessorized," with a line of add-ons (carrying case, mounting

brackets, rechargeable battery pack, cigarette lighter cable) to configure them for just about any use short of deep-sea diving. (Which wouldn't work anyway, since the woofer cone is paper.)

The drivers are a 4" treated-paper woofer and 1" liquid-cooled tweeter. Both are shielded to permit use near a TV. (Please note, Enid, that the aluminum cabinet itself provides no

shielding, since aluminum is not permeable.) The claimed frequency response is 50Hz to

25kHz, down 3dB at those points. The exact conditions under which this obtains are not stated, though one can assume it is at full bass boost and/or near a room corner. The amp is rated at 15Wpc, at less than 1% distortion. Peak acoustical output is at least 106dB, at 1 meter.

Setup is simple. Plug the Partners into a near-

by wall outlet (each has its own AC outlet, to simplify things), run the input cables to the program source, and turn everything on. (If you're not at home, you'll need a lighter cable,

AR's gelled-electrolyte battery back, or a large solar-cell array.) The Partners have their own level controls, for decks or players lacking them. (The usual thing is to take the feed from the headphone jack, which is level-controlled. With this setup, AR recommends setting the Partners' level controls at 3 o'clock.)

All my listening was done with a Sony D-7S

Discman as source, since this is the way the Partners would most often be used. (AR must be commended for its integrity in not pro-moting the Partners for use in a video system or as ambience speakers. Unless one needs a single product to do double duty, a separate

amp and speakers, especially used models, could sound better and cost no more.) Initial reactions were favorable; the Partners had a reasonably clean, fairly well-balanced sound. And although they couldn't hit rock-concert levels, they had no trouble playing loudly in a large (14x20') room, even with substantial bass boost. Still, I wanted to make a "fair"

comparison with a "comparable" high-quality miniature speaker.

Fortunately, I had the right equipment. My

NAD MR-20 TV has two 5W amplifiers (con-siderably less than the Partners' I5Wpc), and I have a pair of Infinity 0.1 speakers (the "In-finitesimals") which displace only a bit more

volume than the Partners. (The Infinities are, in fact, always connected to the NAD.) I spent several hours listening to high-quality CDs played through both systems.

The Partners' principal sonic flaw is a moder-ate "hollowness" which sometimes borders

on honkiness or nasality. It is not apparent on all program material, being most obvious with woodwinds and lower-register strings, but not, oddly, on voice.

The Partners' overall response seems a bit "lumpy," too. The midrange, not surprising-


ly, is a bit laid-back, and mid-bass seems weak. The best overall balance (with the speakers on the floor, but away from the walls) was obtained

with the bass boost control set to about 3 o'clock. The boost is truly bass-only. No matter

how far it's advanced, the boost never intrudes into voices or adds boxiness.

There's a decent amount of bass, but it isn't especially detailed, transparent, or well-defined. On heavily scored bass passages, there is some bass breakup and muddy distortion. Bass distor-tion is quite high, even at 100Hz. With sinewave test tones, a lack of cleanliness is audible at any listening level. Above a certain level (dependent on both drive and bass boost), a papery breakup sets in. On the positive side, the Partners have great

depth and tremendous, probably exaggerated, spaciousness. Those who enjoy these qualities will be delighted with their Partners. I also

found that even after a few hours' listening, I was not fatigued. Though my overall reaction is more positive

than negative, the Partners strike me as rather a "Roxanne" product. As an NPR movie reviewer put it: "I like this film, but I know the original, and I know what's missing." My feel-

ings exactly. I like the Partners, but it is possible to make a better miniature speaker: the In-finities, though only a bit bigger, are far smoother, have more and cleaner bass, and no hollowness. I also carry the prejudices of an amateur

recordist. I would dearly love a really good pair

of mini-speakers for monitoring. The Partners

simply aren't convenient enough to carry, or high enough in sound quality. to be those

speakers. (At least, according to my possibly ex-cessive standards.) I could have purchased the Partners at a very attractive price, but declined. Those who often wish they had a way to play

their personal stereos through speakers should have no hesitation in buying the Partners, pro-vided they've listened a while, and aren't bothered by the mild colorations. Those with

a less pressing need might wait a bit (though I know of no similar product at a reasonable price coming from any other manufacturer,' or any intent by AR to produce an "improved" version). AR should consider updating the KLH.112.

Two passive speakers with about twice the usable internal volume of the Partners could clip to the sides of a carrying case. The case would have a foam insert to hold a Walkman or Discman (and program material), with the amps, power supply, recharger, and batteries built in.

This arrangement would be more convenient

than the present system of "loose" components, and should sound even better. And I've got just

the name for it: the Senior Partner! How about it, AR?

I At the Summer CES, AudioPro showed an incredible pair of mini-speakers and matching amp/equalizer. The sound was unbelievable, as was the price: $1100!

2 If anybody gets the feeling that this is the hi-fi %rision of Scotty Ferguson trying to remake Judy Barton into Madeleine Elster. they're not far wrong I loved my KI.H Model II.

WINGATE 2000A SERIES III POWER AMPLIFIER

Dick Olsher

Stereo power amplifier. Power output: 100W continuous, pure class-A. Power bandwidth: 0.1Hz to 250kHz. Current Drive Capability: 64 amps peak-to-peak; 23 amps continuous. Slew rate: 100V/us. Damping factor: Greater than 30, 20Hz-20kHz. Gain: 28dB (1.12V rms in for 100W out). Input impedance: 25k ohms. Dimensions: 19" W by 7.75" H by 22.4" D. Weight: 67 pounds. Price: $3700. Approximate number of dealers: 20. Manufacturer: Wingate Audio Corporation, 20 Sunnyside Ave., Suite A, Box 194, Mill Valley, CA 94941. Tel: (415) 381-5018.

It is uncommon in audio for engineering savvy

to combine with a good ear. Too often the golden ears do not possess the requisite engi-neering skills, and the engineering talent is too

obsessed with specifications and measured

performance to notice that the emperor has no clothes. But in the case of Steve Wingate we have an innovative engineer who listens very well indeed. The offspring of a marriage be-tween brains and ears is often precocious, and


the 2000A amp is no exception. It runs circles around most amps—especially at the frequency extremes. But it is not perfect, and in the final analysis. . .1 see that I'm getting ahead of my-

self, so I'll slow down and maintain the sus-pense a while longer.

The Wingate embraces several crucial design concepts. First, this is a pure class-A design. None of that pseudo- or quasi-class-A jazz here. The output stage is biased to conduct 100% of the time, on both the negative and positive portions of the signal. We all know that class-A operation commands a price in the

form of increased heatsinking demands and reduced power output for the same number of output transistors, but for a cost-no-object

design I believe that this is the proper path to follow. The primary advantage is that of elim-inating crossover distortion caused by switch-ing transistors on and off to handle different portions of the signal. Also, the DC biasing cir-cuitry is generally simpler and more stable. Another significant design parameter is the

use of no overall negative feedback and no

negative feedback within the voltage gain stages. Local feedback is only used in the final stage of the amplifier. Traditionally, feedback

has been used to linearize the performance of an amplifier. Although it is incapable of reduc-ing input-signal noise, feedback can greatly reduce nonlinearities in the gain stages—at

least under steady-state conditions. And that

is an important caveat. With sinewave input signals it is easy to demonstrate the advantage

of using lots of feedback to control distortion. However, complex musical waveforms don't look much like sinewaves, and with real-world signals feedback is unable to keep up with the

II

Wingate 2000A power amp

fast-changing envelope of the waveform.

The result is Transient Intermodulation Dis-tortion, or TIM for short (a popular buzzword in the late '70s, but still a valid concept). TIM is not a pleasant fellow, and his audible result is a loss of dynamic bloom and inner detail with a concomitant irritating edginess. Ano-ther problem has to do with maintaining sta-bility into reactive loads. This is very difficult to do with heavy doses of overall feedback because the feedback is increasingly out of

phase with the input signal; the ultimate result can be HF oscillation or even worse. The sad truth, however, is that nonlinearities in the gain stage mandate the use of some feedback. So the trend in recent years has been to avoid

overall negative feedback while retaining local

feedback around the gain stages. The Win-gate comes closer to the ideal of no feedback through the use of devices said to be funda-mentally linear (MOSFETs) and a patented distortion-cancelling technique which linear-

izes the amplification process. The amp is claimed to be a "zero-negative feedback de-sign," and while it may use less feedback than any other commercial design known to me, such a claim is not strictly true. The 2000A is also said to be dual-mono in

design. I wonder what Wingate's definition of

this is. Certainly, the power supplies are laid out in dual-mono fashion on the chassis, but the left and right gain stages share the same PC board. Close, I suppose, but no cigar.

Technical Details Construction quality and passive parts utilized

are of very high quality. Signal-path caps are SiderealKaps, which I've found to be the best

Stereophile, February 1988 Ill

money can buy. The resistors used are also very good (Resistas). Silver solder and pure-copper PC-board traces are used throughout. Four huge power supplies are provided which

consist of a total capacitance of 352,000uF, and there are two separate toroidal transformers, each rated at 650VA. All of which accounts for the Wingate's impressive current-drive capability. The input signal is attenuated and filtered

to remove HF trash before being applied to a pair of symmetrical but opposing current mirrors and bias stage. The resultant current swings are combined in a voltage gain stage. Because the nonlinearities of the current mir-rors are opposite in polarity they cancel each other at this point—at least to the extent al-lowed by device-to-device uniformity in trans-

fer characteristics. The class-A voltage stage drives the power MOSFET output-current stage, which is also class-A biased. A relay is provided to disconnect the output from the load during turn-on in order to eliminate DC pulses from reaching the speakers. This relay also serves as protection from amplifier failure or other catastrophic events. A DC servo cir-cuit monitors and corrects DC offsets in the signal path. The amp features a very clever and effective thermal-control system. All of the ac-tive signal-path circuitry is located along the

sides of a "chimney" or tunnel that runs the length of the chassis. Extending into this tun-nel are all of the heatsinks, which are then cooled by a fan located at the front end of the tunnel. Air intake is from the bottom of the amp and through air filters so as to keep dust outside. The warm air is exhausted through vents on the back of the amp—a wonderful forced-air heater for those cold winter nights in Santa Fe! The fan is quiet, all right, being barely audible 10 feet away in a quiet room. Fortunately, the noise is completely masked with even faint program material. Just as I was preparing for some serious

listening, a bypass cap mod arrived courtesy of Wingate. Apparently after extended listening tests, Wingate decided that bypassing the 2uF input coupling caps with 0.01uF SiderealKaps improved the lower treble by eliminating a

slight roughness around 8kHz. Mind you, the coupling caps were already premium-quality SiderealKaps. In any event, I proceeded to in-stall these bypass caps per Wingate's instruc-tions, and I can report that the improvement

in the treble is indeed worthwhile. Naturally,

all future production units will incorporate this modification.

Sonic Impressions #1 Listening began with the Lesley Test. As you must have gathered by now, reproduction of the human voice is an important priority of mine, and these master tapes of my soprano spouse give me an immediate and accurate assessment of midrange colorations. To my mind, voice is the most difficult instrument to

master. Ingo Titze at the University of Iowa has analyzed the vocal instrument from a material-science viewpoint. The quality of musical in-struments is determined by their shape and material properties. Such instruments have stable geometries, dependable elastic moduli, and resonant Qs. The human larynx, on the other hand, is made of materials that vary con-siderably with time, frequency, and biochem-ical composition. Given these variable proper-ties, Mr. Titze concludes that the larynx as a

musical instrument would appear to be in the class of a plastic ukulele with rubber strings, and that control of such an instrument to maintain accurate pitch and consistent quality

would seem to be a formidable task. That the human voice is capable of so much musicality is indeed a miracle!!

As a prelude to the Lesley Test results, I

would like to share with you some additional facts that bear on the interpretation of this test. In normal speech, neither male nor female voice has fundamentals higher than about 250Hz. However, the fundamental pitch of sopranos in operatic voice often ranges as high

as 1320Hz, and sometimes, in the coloratura voice, considerably higher. So we have here an instrument whose fundamentals are smack in the middle of the midrange. Different vowel sounds are formed from approximately the same basic laryngeal tone spectrum by shaping the vocal tract (throat, back of mouth, mouth or jaw opening, and lips) to have different

resonances. The resultant peaks in the fre-quency spectrum are called formants. The for-mants that determine vowel quality lie largely in the 250-1850Hz range, but as the fundamen-tal is shifted higher the first formant moves up to coincide with the pitch of the fundamen-

I Yes. IX). hut the very concept of musicality is based on that most ancient of musical instruments. thy human voice, which is "capable of so much musicality" by definition. —RL


tal. As the fundamental approaches lkHz, the first three formants of all the vowels are almost identical in frequency, making them all sound very similar. This accounts for the fact that the intelligibility of sopranos in the upper registers is poor.

Finally, the test results. Above about lkHz, the Wingate's sound was exceptionally clean and cohesive. Control of treble transients was excellent. Harmonic textures in the upper reg-isters of Lesley's voice were very convincing: smooth and detailed, without hardness, harsh-ness, or added zip or grit. The extreme treble

was spacious and extended, while the lower treble was perceived as being slightly liquid and soft—a la vintage tube gear. But the per-

formance through the upper octaves was in stark contrast to that below about lkHz. The sound quality here was slightly opaque and reticent. Vowels sounded slightly thick and

darkened in tonal color. The lower mids struck me as dull and lifeless. The tonal purity and delicacy of Lesley's upper registers were simply

missing down here. The resonance and rich-ness of the chest diaphragm were obscured. The transition was quite disturbing: Lesley's tonal colors faded out, then converged as she shifted gears upward. The overall effect was of a refined sound quality lacking the visceral excitement present on the master tapes, and for that reason not particularly involving mus-

ically. As JGH would put it: the goosebumps never came. Toward the end of the analog session I be-

came aware that I was having a hard time fo-cusing on the music. With the 2000A in the chain it was very easy to tune out the music and let my mind drift. A useful attribute, no doubt, for background music, but certainly not for serious listening. I think that this amp would benefit from a romantic tube preamp

to flesh out the lower mids, and it does not sur-prise me that Steve Wingate uses the Conver-

gent Audio Technology SL-1 in his reference system. Because of the high standards the 2000A

sets in the treble and bass regions, I found its midrange problems all the more frustrating; I decided it deserved one more chance. With

JGH's help, the amp was moved down the basement stairs and into his reference system. After a few CDs replayed via the St2X Quattro,

we switched to analog. Respighi's Feste Ro-mane (Mobile Fidelity's Limited Edition) is

massive, loud, and emotionally involving—at least with the Audio Research M300s or the

Cochran Delta Mode amps driving the Sound Labs. The kind of music that's impossible to ignore, right? Well, several minutes into the

music I turned to JGH to comment on how bland and canned the sound had gotten, and what do you know! His attention span had lapsed. He had lost contact with the music and was thinking about something else entirely. "I see what you mean," he said with a chuckle. I returned the amplifier, wrote a short, dis-

missive conclusion to the review, and consi-dered matters closed.

Sonic Impressions e2 Rather than take my review lying down, how-ever, Steve Wingate burned the midnight oil

with my original text in hand, tackling the voltage reference section that biases the front-end MOSFElb. Rather than drive a zener diode, the current source now drives a precision re-sistor. Using a resistive voltage source also has the advantage of eliminating a number of caps used to filter the zener voltages.2 The power supply was also improved, with the idea of enhancing the amp's dynamic range. The 2000A, now in "Series Ill" incarnation,

arrived on my doorstep just two weeks after I had dispensed with the first sample. What a transformation! My principal objection to the 2000A's sound had to do with its wooden, slightly colored midrange reproduction. Sur-prise! The revised amp has made stupendous gains in midrange timbre accuracy, transpar-

ency, and dynamic contrasts. The first order of

business was to rerun the Lesley Test. My first listen was through the revised Ohm Walsh 5

loudspeaker, currently under review. To say that I've had great difficulties in reproducing the correct tonality and harmonic flavors of Lesley's voice would be an understatement. On

the Ohms, for example, neither the Cochran Delta Mode or Threshold SA-1s amps had proved entirely satisfactory. With the 2000A in the system, Lesley's voice was reproduced as close to lifelike as I've ever heard: clean, transparent, and harmonically correct. Even the Krell KMA-100 Mk.II monoblocks did not come so close: vowels sounded slightly dark, giving the lower register an unnatural chesti-

2 Though convenient. aliwr diodes an: inherently noisy when used as voltage references.


ness. A similar effect was also noted on male voice. But playing the Persuasions' No Frills (Rounder 3083) through the Wingate, lead singer Jerry Lawson's tenor timbre was much

better realized, and Jimmy Hayes's bass voice

was not bloated, and much more palpable. In several respects, however, it was clear that

the Krells were better, being consistently more

transparent and authoritative, and better fo-cused top-to-bottom than the Wingate on both CD and analog program material. But the Krells were consistently cool and slightly dark-sounding. Cool as in cool jazz, without the sunshine and drive of hot jazz phrasing. The Krells were capable of clean, round tones, but understated midrange textures. These qualities combined to rob the music of much of its

verve and excitement. The Wingate, on the other hand, was able to imbue the Ohms with a warm but very natural sunshine- glow.

At this point, a thought crossed my mind: what if this is merely a case of phenomenal synergism between a particular amp and speak-er? It seemed reasonable to examine the Win-gate in the context of other speaker systems. As of now I've tried it with my Dahlia-Debra and Koval-modded Quad ESI-s. In both cases

the Wingate acquitted itself superbly It did not have the weight of the Krell in the lower mids, but neither was it thin-sounding. It consis-tently had more verve and natural harmonic colors than the Krell—quite amazing for an

amp costing only half as much. When the 2000A is powered up, either one

or both channels are in a low-gain mode. On

this sample it took several minutes for both channels to come up to a high-gain condition,

as opposed to several seconds on the first sam-ple This surprised me, and I assumed this was

some sort of glitch. According to Wingate, however, this is perfectly normal. Since you'll

want to warm up the amp for a few minutes anyhow before any serious listening, I don't see this as a problem.

To sum up The Wingate Series III just about has it all. It is clean, detailed, and neutral sounding. But above all it is capable of reproducing the dy-namic bloom and verve of live music. With the

program material permitting, this is an exciting amp capable of generating goosebumps galore.

It appears to easily handle a variety of speaker loads, from low- and high-impedance dynam-ics to capacitive electrostatics. Closer to perfec-tion than any other stereo solid-state amp I've heard, it is very, very difficult to criticize. One

could wish for a little more midrange trans-parency (possibly a monoblock version would

help), and it certainly does not have the 3-D imaging and spatial resolution of the best tube amps money can buy, but it blows its immed-iate competition out of the water. It is that good. That it achieves Class A performance at almost half the asking price of some of our Class A recommended amps should be good news to audiophiles without bottom-less pockets. The older Series II amplifiers may be up-

graded to current status for only $150, while the Series I (without the van den Hul Silver wiring of the II) will cost $250 for a complete upgrade.

Fabulous sound and a reasonable price (by high-end standards) is my definition of the proverbial "steal." Buy this amp now before the price starts to climb.

SIMA W-3050 STEREO POWER AMPLIFIER Thomas J. Norton

Solid-state class-AB amplifier. Power output: 50Wpc into 8 ohms; 100Wpc into 4 ohms; frequen-cy range not specified. Bandwidth: -3dB at 100kHz. Rated distortion: under 0.05% THD and IM (frequency range not specified). Slew rate: 50V/us. Input sensitivity: 0.5V. Weight: 25 lbs. Dimen-sions: 18" W by 51/4" H by 101/4" D. Price: $995. Approximate number of dealers: 18. Manufacturer: Sima Electronics, PO Box 402, St-Hubert, Quebec, Canada J3J 5T3. Tel: (514) 678-0802. US Distributor: Audiophile Accessories, 119 East Wayne Street. Butler, PA 16001. Tel: (412) 282-7195.

Most reviewers, and I suspect not a kw ut our every company in the audio marketplace, if

readers, pride themselves on being aware of not every individual product. But when JA


sent me an amplifier for evaluation manufac-

tured by Sima, my first reaction was "what's a Sima?" You might well have the same ques-

tion. It turns out that Sima is a Canadian com-pany which maintains a remarkably low profile

here in the US: they have been listed in the Audio annual directories all the way back to '84 (and possibly further back—my earlier edi-tions are buried somewhere in back-date magazine never-never-land). But I have never seen a Sima advertisement. They have never,

to my knowledge, made an appearance at a CES, nor have I ever seen a Sima product in a

dealer's showroom or a dealer's ad in this or any other magazine. In short, compared with Sima, Klyne is practically a household name.

Notoriety, however, is hardly a requirement for a company to manufacture a quality prod-uct, so I approached the Sima W-3050 with

an anticipation of discovery. In fact, 1 didn't even know its power rating until after the audi-tioning was complete—the spec sheet arrived just before I sat down to write this review.

Therefore, in one important sense, the audi-tioning was "blind" in a way which is impos-sible with more familiar products. Sima provided little in the way of circuit de-

tails for the W-3050. It is a modestly powered, class-AB amplifier designed along fairly straightforward, classical lines: fully com-

plementary from input to output, limited bandwidth to avoid transient intermodulation (TIM) distortion, quality paris, and an oversized

power supply No special "gee-whiz" circuit features are claimed. Internal construction is about average for an amplifier in this price

class, although the power supply did not strike

Sima W-3050 power amp

me as all that oversized. Two fairly large toroidal transformers and four filter capacitors (total of 40,000uF) take up most of the inter-nal space. There are two pair of output devices per channel. The external chassis forms part of the heatsink (there are no external heatsink "fins"). No internal fuses were visible. An in-ternal switch is provided to permit bridging

of the amp.' Gaining access to the interior is best left to a dealer; the chassis is made up of individual plates assembled rather like a

Chinese puzzle-box. I was able to get inside (well, not literally) by removing one side, then the top (the latter is held in place by three small

Allen-head setscrews). The individual plates that make up the chassis worked slightly loose in shipment—not at all reassuring—but were easy to retighten with no apparent ill effects.

I auditioned the Sima through both Apogee Duetta II and Synthesis LM300 loudspeakers. Associated equipment consisted of the Monster Alpha "Ikvo in an Eminent Technology

II tonearm and a Klyne SK-5a preamp, with interconnects by Monster (M-1000 and Interlink Reference A) and speaker cables by Monster (M-1 with the Synthesis) and Kimber (biwire

8TC with the Duetta Ils).

The Sima did surprisingly well driving the Apogees, considering its limited power. As long, that is, as the material was reasonably

undemanding and the listening levels moderate. The LM300 is, however, a much more suitable

II don't generally recommend bridging an amplifier that isn't specified to drive loads of less than I ohms. Such an amp. when bridged. shouldn't be loaded with less than 8 ohms: most lieudspeakers dip significantly below 8 ohms somi.s‘bere in their frequency range.


load (at Ild13 greater sensitivity, it requires less than a tenth the power input for the same out-

put). The Sima displayed a similar sonic signature through both systems, provided it was not pushed too hard in driving the Apogees; using it to drive these latter loud-

speakers was useful in assessing its sound, but I would not recommend the Sima for all-around use in driving Duettas. It just doesn't have sufficient power to do the Apogees full justice. To be perfectly honest, I was disappointed

with the sound of the Sima. As was the case with the Parasound D/AS-1000 reviewed in Vol.11 No.1, I found it to be generally sweet and inoffensive. But it had a number of character-istics which, in my judgment, must be improved upon if it is to compete in its price range. It had a forward quality which foreshortened the sense of depth, and sounded consistently "louder" than other amps to which it was compared, even when levels were carefully ad-justed. And at 50Wpc it lacked, as might be ex-pected, the sort of low-frequency impact that the best price-competitive amplifiers provide. It does well up to the point of clipping—quite respectably clean and tight—but don't expect to rattle the rafters unless you're using fairly efficient loudspeakers in a small room.

One thread runs through my listening notes on this amplifier: an overall lack of focus. High frequencies are softened, reducing clarity and "snap." Individual instruments and voices seem to "spread" slightly within the sound-stage—not so much as to cause serious image confusion, but enough to subtly obscure the specificity of image placement and reduce the differentiation of inner instrumental and vocal details. On River Road (Opus 3 8017), delicate guitar-fingering details were rounded off. Tran-sient attack lacked immediacy; the Sima does not sound dull—far from it—but thinly veiled. On the last cut of side A, "There's a River," it takes longer than it should (and longer than it does with more transparent amplifiers) to

realize that there are, intermittently, two voices

singing in unison. On Test Record 2 (Opus 3 8000), side B, cut 5, "Jesu Meine Freude," depth was reasonably well presented, but

there was little differentiation of voices within the chorus. Cut 8 on the same side, "Dalaham-

bo," is primarily a brass sextet, but it begins

with some subtle percussion detailing in the right channel. In my listening notes I wasn't even moved to comment on this passage; when I listened to it again after substituting a

more transparent amplifier (the Adcom GFA -555), I noted how alive it sounded and how it was imbedded in a natural acoustic space. I could go on, but at the risk of simply

belaboring the point. I compared the Sima with two other amplifiers directly—the Aragon 4004 and the Adcom GFA-555 (the former significantly more expensive, the latter con-

siderably cheaper). Only in a case where a softened high end is preferred would the Sima have any point of advantage over either of these amplifiers. In the important parameters of openness, extension at the frequency ex-tremes, inner detailing, and soundstage preci-sion, both amplifiers outpoint the Sima. And while! didn't directly compare the Parasound

D/AS-1000 with the Sima, I did evaluate both amplifiers at about the same time. I also was somewhat critical of the Parasound, but if push came to shove I wouldn't hesitate to recom-

mend it as a considerably better value than the Sima —nearly three times the (continuous) power for about 60% of the cost, with mar-ginally better overall sound.

In its home market the Sima might be com-petitive; US electronics, such as the Adcom, tend to be considerably more expensive once they reach Canada. But, in my opinion, the Sima needs additional development work before it is fully competitive with the best amplifiers in (and in some cases below) its price class.

PARASOUND HCA-800 POWER AMPLIFIER

Thomas J. Norton

Solid-state class-A/AB power amplifier. Power output: 80Wpc into 8 ohms, 20Hz-20kHz, 130Wpc


Parasound HC800 power amp

into 4 ohms, 20Hz-20kHz. Bandwidth: 20Hz-20kHz. Input sensitivity: 700mV. Input impedance: 30k ohms. Damping factor: greater than 100. Weight: 23 lbs. Dimensions: 171/4" W by 33/4 " H by 11 3/4 " D. Price: $335. Approximate number of dealers: 135. Manufacturer: Parasound Products. Inc., 945 Front Street, San Francisco, CA 94111. Tel: (415) 397-7100.

In Vol.11 No.1 I reviewed Parasound's D/AS-

1000 amplifier. While the HCA-800 might be

termed its smaller sibling, the two amplifiers differ in several respects other than power and

price. Both are high-current designs, but the

HCA-800 is not rated into 2 ohm loads. Nor does the smaller amplifier claim the elaborate, dual-rail power supply of the D/AS-1000. It

does, however, have substantial rated head-room —115Wpc of dynamic power into 8

ohms, 150Wpc into 4. It also has external level controls for each channel and separate, switch-

able outputs for two sets of speakers—the lat-

ter feature not available on the larger amplifier.

A rack-mounting kit is available for $24. My initial listening to the HCA-800 was con-

ducted in a small listening room (about 11 by

15 by 8 feet) driving first the Kindel Purist LTs and subsequently the Castle Durhams, both

also under evaluation. The program source

was a CD player (the Audio Concepts Brasfield

modification of the Magnavox CDB 650) fed directly into the HCA-800; level adjustment

was provided by the controls on the amplifier itself. Judged on its performance within this

system, the Parasound provided rewarding

listening. No, it was not to be confused with

a super amplifier, but it did produce, within

the limits imposed by the loudspeakers and associated program material, a thoroughly en-

joyable sound, with respectable soundstag,ing,

clean, well-defined bass, and nonfatiguing

highs with a notable lack of glare, hardness, or other solid-state "nasties." I did not feel that

the amplifier was limiting my ability to evaluate

these loudspeakers in this environment, and

felt no inclination to change it for another model during the course of the small-room

listening tests.

To get a better idea of how the Parasound

would respond when combined with more

revealing loudspeakers and more varied pro-

gram material (CD and LP), the HCA-800 was brought into my main listening room for fur-

ther auditioning. It was first hooked up to the Apogee Duetta Ils. Other associated equip-

ment: Eminent Technology II arm with Mon-ster Alpha 2 mounted on a Luxman PD-300

belt-drive turntable, Klyne SK-5a preamplifier, and American Audio Laboratories P-12 CD

player. Interconnects were by Monster (Inter-

link Reference A and M-1000), speaker wire by

Kimber (doubled-up 8TC, bi-wired). Loading with these insensitive loudspeakers

is something of a cruel and unusual punish-

ment for a moderately powered, inexpensive

amplifier; I couldn't resist. For the first few minutes of the auditioning, the results were

surprisingly listenable. To be sure, there were

limitations. The soundstage was respectable,

but not exceptional. Depth was slightly fore-shortened and imaging less precise than I have

heard with other, more expensive and power-ful amplifiers through the Duettas. Midbass

was slightly fat (and the Duettas themselves are

not at all lean in this region), and some clip-

ping was noted on piano reproduced at high but not lease-breaking levels. Ambience was

more subdued than the best I have heard from

the Duettas; highs lacked the subtle delicacy

and detailing of costlier amps but weren't in

any way hard or grainy. Kept below clipping, the sound was very listenable. Instrumental

timbres were good. The flaws I noted were mostly subtractive, the easiest kind to live with.

But the good times didn't continue to roll.

On Leo Kottke's superb A Shout Toward Noon (CD, Private Music 2007-2-P) I began to notice a low-level, bum, raspy distortion that sounded

like a particularly irritating interchannel cross-


talk distortion. It was evident primarily on the

decay of hard transients, and once it asserted

itself was impossible to ignore. I thought per-

haps the amplifier was defective, but it never

displayed this characteristic on any of the three

conventional loudspeakers with which it was used. Conclusion: avoid the HCA-800 if you

have or plan to use Apogees, and use caution

(je, a careful audition) before considering it for

use with anything other than a conventional,

average-efficiency dynamic system. I doubt if

any potential user will lose sleep over this

limitation.

After this experience, I did the rest of my

listening to the HCA-800 through the Synthe-

sis LM-300s. Two other amplifiers were used

for comparison: the Sumo Polaris and the Ad-

com GFA-555 (the latter of mid-1986 vintage). The Parasound acquitted itself well, but broke

no new ground. Its bass was reasonably deep

and well-defined, but noticeably less so than

either of the other amplifiers. The same could be said of its highs. They were more than ac-

ceptably detailed, yet definitely erred on the side of roundness—never hard or harsh and

always listenable, but never totally involving

either. In the midband, the HCA-800 was a

shade more forward than either the Adcom or

the Sumo, with noticeably less focus and res-

olution than either—especially the Adcom.

The differences became more pronounced at

higher volume settings and program peaks, the

Parasound simply losing definition and be-

coming congested faster than either the Ad-

corn or the Sumo. But the Parasound is roughly

half the price of either of the other amplifiers;

judged in that light, and considering that it's likely to be used with far more modest loud-

speakers, its performance was more than re-

spectable.

In its strengths and weaknesses, the HCA-

800 resembles Parasound's larger D/AS-1000, with the latter, more powerful amplifier super-

ior, as expected, in lack of strain at high out-

put levels and in bass power. In my previous

review I had found the D/AS-1000 to be a good

but not exceptional performer in a price class

with some stiff competition. The HCA-800 is a good but not exceptional performer in a

price class with little competition, which

makes for a rather different conclusion. But it

does have one serious competitor: the $295

Adcom GFA-535. I have not heard that unit under familiar conditions, having personal ex-

perience only with Adcom's GFA-555. But the

Audio Cheapskate was definitely impressed by

the little Adcom (Vol.10 No.8), and from his

sonic description of that unit, I can only con-

clude that it doesn't sound like the HCA-800.

Since in this price class compatibility is, if

anything, even more significant than in the

high end (and it's certainly not negligible

there), I seriously recommend, if shopping for

an amplifier in this range, that you audition

both of these products in a system similar to

your own. The Parasound does have one competitive

edge over the Adcom: its built-in level controls

facilitate use with a CD player without the need for a preamp or external level control'

(the Adcom has no such controls). On the neg-ative side, if you plan to use a preamp, an extra set of level controls in the circuit is seldom a

sonic plus. The HUA-800 never warmed the cockles or

raised goose bumps, but neither did it ever

send me fleeing to the television to watch

Gilligan 's Island reruns. You might recall that my reaction to the larger Parasound amplifier

had been similarly ambivalent—neither love

nor dislike. But here we're looking at a signif-

icantly lower price. At a shade over $300, I don't expect high drama; I expect listenability,

competence, and value for money. The small Parasound qualified.

I With the C2VC21 that you check the compatibility of the CD player's output level with the input sensitivity of the power amp. The best way to check this is hy auditioning hoth together

TANDBERG 3015A CD PLAYER J. Gordon Holt

CD player with optional remote. Frequency response: +0.3dB. 2Hz-20kHz. THD: 0.005% at 1kHz. Signal/noise ratio: 100dB. D/A: dual 16-bit, 4-times oversampled. Output: 2V Power consumption: 30W. Dimensions: 1714" W by 31/2" H by 133/4 " D. VVeight: 125 lbs. Price: $1895. Approximate number


Tandberg TCP 3015A CD player

of dealers: 200-250. Manufacturer: Tandberg of America, Inc., 122 DuPont St., Plainview, NY 11803 Tel: (516) 349-9206

Tandberg of Norway has a rather ambiguous corporate image among audio perfectionists.

Long considered to make some of the best

tape-recording equipment around, the firm has never been seen as a leader in electronics, despite some bold—and reportedly good-sounding—forays into the realm of $2000 preamps and $3500 power amplifiers. Per-haps this is why, when Tandberg started mak-

ing CD players, high-enders were uncertain

how to respond. A CD player is not a tape recorder, and (according to belief, which proved wrong) a digital signal is uncorruptible until it becomes audio—an area where Tand-berg had no such brilliant track record as Krell or Audio Research or Threshold. Ergo,

a Tandberg CD player could never be better than quite good. AHC, in his CD-player survey (Vol.10 No.1),

hinted that this prejudgment of the 3015A—

then in its 14-bit incarnation—may have been incorrect, judging its sound to be among the best of the machines he auditioned. The current version, with an identical model number, uses the Philips 16-bit D/A chip it was supposed to have used initially but didn't

because it wasn't available as soon as Philips had anticipated. But the current machine ap-pears otherwise to be identical in every way to the '86 model. The 3015A is a 4x-oversampling 16-bit

player with separate DACs (on the same chip) and a single power transformer. The deck, power supply, and digital board are all of

Philips manufacture; Tandberg uses their own aluminum chassis and analog board. All the analog active devices are discrete bipolar transistors, DC coupled throughout. There

are no capacitors in the circuit path, and

neither is there any feedback anywhere in the

audio circuit. Arrays of resistors are used to provide the precise values needed for mini-mum distortion in the absence of the param-eter stabilization normally provided by feed-back. The common power supply delivers four pairs (+ and -) of isolated, regulated out-

puts to the logic board, DAC, and audio sec-tions. The deck uses Philips' single-beam laser system, which eliminates several critical

adjustments that are sometimes subject to drift in 3-beam players. The player delivers a fixed output level of

2 volts max, and has no other output connec-tions except a front-panel-controlled head-phone jack.

Purely on the basis of its drawer assembly, the first impression of this player is that of very flimsy construction. The drawer itself is made of plastic and is quite lightweight, and

when open, there is a great deal of vertical slop in it. The impression, though, is mislead-

ing, because when the drawer closes, it seats firmly against its subassembly, forming an

essentially solid block which, when tapped, sounds very inert. Overall construction of the player is, in fact, very good. The pushbutton controls are unusual.

They are round and slightly protruding, rather like thin knobs, and although they pro-duce a slightly irritating mechanical click

when depressed, they have a very nice feel to them, all giving that small tactile-feedback "snap" which, on a computer keyboard, gives assurance that you've depressed a key all the way. Otherwise, the 3015 hews to true audio-

phile tradition in that it is not very conven-ient to use. It comes without a remote control

(although it's an available option), and there is no number pad either on the player or on

the remote. You wanna play track 12? You


TRACK

I( ) TRACKING

BEAM I

SIGNAL

REAM

TRACKING HEAM 2

TRACKE7 CELL 1L_J

sIGNAL1(1> CELL

TRACK n CELL 2 11

AS LENS GOES OFF CENTER, LIGHT BALANCE ON CELLS 1 AND 2 CHANGES

PIT

TRACK

SIGNAL & TRACKING BEAM

TWO SPLIT

PHOTO CELLS

TRACK SHIFTED LEFT

VI@ VI@ TRACK CENTERED

Ill 'N

TRACK SHIFTED RIGHT

1=1 LIGHT PRESENT

NO LIGHT

1=1 INTERMEDIATE-STRENGTH

LIGHT

In a three-beam laser system (left), the first and third beams are directed at the disc ahead of and behind the signal beam, at opposite edges of the pit track. Their reflections are picked up by photo cells that are physically separated from the main-signal pickup cell. When both tracking cells "see" the same proportion of the total track width, their equal-but-antiphase outputs cancel. When they are displaced to either side of the signal track, their outputs are of different amplitude, cancella-tion is incomplete, and the resulting + or - off-set voltage is fed to the head servo to get it back on center-track. Focus-correction information in the three-beam system is derived from the dis-tribution of the main signal beam between the quadrants of a third photocell, which also receives the signal data. Perfect focus throws a circular beam; imperfect focus throws an elliptical beam in either of two directions depending on the direc-tion of the focus error (lens too close or too far from the disc surface).

In a single-beam system (right), tracking, focus, and signal information are all gleaned from the shape and size of a single reflected laser beam thrown onto a pair of side-by-side dual photocells. Tracking errors shift the beam toward one side pair or the other. Focus errors narrow or spread the beam between the two pairs, depending on the direction of the error.

punch the Track+ button 12 times, or hold it in for about 6 seconds. Program four selec-tions? You use the Track+ button to "locate"

each track, four times. It does have an Index find, but you have to call that out the same way, by punching or holding the Track+ but-ton. Calling out track 99 on a test disc takes about 45 seconds, which seems like a small eternity while you're doing it. Now, I could be tolerant about this sort of

love-me- despite- my-shortcomings attitude when all such handicapped CD players sound-ed much better than their full-function cous-ins, but that choice of sound versus conven-ience need no longer be made. Similarly-priced players like the Denon DCD-3300 and the Sony 705ESD have shown it is possible to combine full operating convenience with very good sound, so the acceptability of the 3015 must turn entirely on its ability to out-perform those units in terms of sound quality. But does it? Well, yes and no.

Response times, to the things the Tandberg will do, were gratifyingly fast. Only when selecting another track during play does it seem a little slow, taking about 2 seconds to acknowledge your command, and this was hardly enough to quibble about. With a disc loaded and the drawer open, the player took 5 seconds to start Track 1 after punching Play. Starting with the door closed, it took 2. From the start of Track 1, it took 5 seconds to ac-cess Rack 15 (the access-time test) of the CBS CD-1 test disc. (Dialing it up took longer.) The 3015A appears to have excellent track-

ing and error-correction, as it played every sur-face glitch on the Philips Test Sample 5-A disc without a trace of distress.' The sound of this player is very much like

the Denon DCD-3300 ($1700), which is to say it is a little laid-back and a shade more rich than outstandingly detailed (like the Sony 705). If the term "dig,ititis" means some-thing to you, this player has as little of it as anything you'll find for under $5000. Bass performance is superb, slightly surpassing that of the Denon, and fully equalling the best I have heard from any players, including the top Sonys which have maintained preem-

I This has printed, on its playing surface, matte patterns and black dots of varying size to simulate scratches and finger-prints. All that's missing is a simulated peanut-butter smear. Nonetheless, not too many players will negotiate the largest obstructions without at least a small click or two.


inence in that area almost from the start. Soundstaging is wide and quite deep, but perspectives are slightly compressed because the closest instruments sound a bit farther away than they should. Imaging is solid and stable, with excellent center fill. Low-level

detail is superbly rendered—as well as from any player I've auditioned. (All of this puzzles me, as no previous player with as rudimentary, and skimpy, a power supply as this has ap-

proached it in soundstage width, imaging stability, or sheer cleanness of sound. It would seem that a brute-force power supply may not be as important in terms of sound quality as it is cracked up to be.)

Sony's $1500 Model 705ES (which has two

separate power transformers for the elec-tronic and the motor drive/servo) has even

better detail and more-distinct layering of receding rows of instruments than the Tand-berg, but is rather more upfront than either the Tandberg or the Denon. While probably

more accurate, it sounds rather less suave on systems optimized for analog discs. The Tandberg's overall sound is very

smooth, relaxed, and effortless—remarkably similar in fact to excellent analog-disc sound,

but a little less forward than that of other

signal sources such as analog and digital tape

and good FM. The 3015A may not be the most tonally accurate CD player money can buy, but it is certainly one of the most listen-able, and should appeal more than most to those who consider analog disc (rather than

more-reliable sources) to be the sound stan-dard by which others are to be judged.

The Tandberg is sonically a little better than the Denon 3300—in low-end authority, overall neutrality, listening ease (by an ex-tremely small margin), and resolution of fine

detail, but with the Denon priced at $195 less and featuring a full complement of controls plus a remote at no extra cost, it is clear that

neither is an obvious choice over the other. Ask Hobson, he knows what it's all about.

All in all, the Tandberg 3015A is a superb player. But I still have a gut feeling that the Sony 705's more up-front sound is more

accurate—that is, more felicitous to the ori-ginal recording—than the sweeter sound of the Tandberg and Denon. There is no doubt, though, that the latter two will sound better

on systems that have been tailored to the sound of analog disc. Which means, most of the systems owned by Stereopbile readers. 1 know which of the three I would choose for my own system, but you don't have to agree with me.

DIGGING DEEP Bill Sommerwerck reviews the dbx 120X-DS subharmonic synthesizer

& Audio Control Phase-Coupled Activator

dbx 120X-DS: Bass synthesizer to create bass fundamentals from musical "harmonics' in the range of about 50 to 120Hz. Processor enhances each channel separately with: continuously variable level of restored subharmonics; soft bypass of signal put-ebbing; variable electronic crossover for subwoofer; separate level control for subwoofer output; subwoofer on/off switch; individual level controls for subhar-monics in 28, 34. 40, and 50Hz bands; separate boost control for 55Hz region (to improve "blend" between existing components and synthesized ones); continuously variable electronic crossover, separately usable. is 12dB/octave highpass, 6dB/octave lowpass, phase-coherent (unity-sum); variable 50-200Hz; In/Bypac-s mode light. Price: $299. Approximate number of dealers: undisclosed. Manufac-turer: dbx, 71 Chapel St., Newton, MA 02195. Tel: (617) 964-3210.

Audio Control Phase-Coupled Activator Bacs synthesizer to create bass fundamentals from musical "harmonics" in the range of about 50 to 120Hz. Processor enhances each channel separately with: continuously variable level of restored subharmonics; soft bypass of signal processing; variable elec-tronic crossover for subwoofer; separate level control for subwoofer output; subwoofer on/off switch: separate inputs for hi-fi system and video components, selected via front-panel switch: hi-fi input automatically shuts off bass restoration when a strong mono component predominates; video input gives bass restoration at all times (see text); subwoofer crossover factory-set at 90Hz—simple plug-in component to change frequency; crossover may be used separately from rest of unit; external proc-essor loop (after processing); unswitched AC outlet. Price: $259. Approximate number of dealers: 600. Manufacturer: Audio Control, PO Box 3199, Lynnwood, WA 98036. Tel: (206) n5-8461.


dbx 120X-DS subharmomc synth.

There are some things you never forget. One of these was the arrival of our dbx rep with the original dbx 100 "Boom Box." "Ya gotta hear this thing!" My cute little classical-listener nose went up in the air. "You've got to be kidding! A bass synthesizer?! On orchestral music?! And that name!"

Not wanting to be rude, we plugged it in and listened. Surprise! It worked. The added bass was natural-sounding; it wasn't boomy! or muddy, and didn't sound "tacked-on." The dbx 100 was quickly added on to my list of "things to buy some day."

But I never bought one, because as my sys-tem improved, there was less and less need for it. Though its effects never seemed "gim-micky," neither did I feel that most recordings lacked bass impact. The availability of theatrical movies on home video changed all that.

Suddenly, sheer visceral impact has become central to the process of "bringing the theater experience home." When an Imperial Walker topples over, you want the air in the room to shudder in sympathetic convulsion. The ultimate goal is to so agitate the vitals that one's dinner is deposited on the faceplate of the 35" hi-res direct-view monitor—from across the room. There are several difficulties standing in the

way of such an admirable end. Few speaker systems (or subwoofers, for that matter) are

I Within a few months, the "boom box" appellation was gone and the "subharmonic synthesizer" designation moved into top billing, dbx dealers were unanimous in rejecting the original name, and for good reason.

capable of high sound-pressure levels in the below-30Hz region. Such products are pro-hibitively expensive for most listeners, as well. Worst of all, most program material (even the

parts with spectacular sound effects) doesn't have much energy below 40Hz. A partial solu-tion is to synthesize the missing bass. It works this way: three or four third-octave filters are used to extract bass harmonics in the 50 to 120Hz region. (The exact frequencies are dif-ferent for each unit, and not explicitly specified.) These signals trigger flip-flops. A flip-flop (more properly a bistable multi-vibrator) is a digital circuit that outputs one pulse for every two that enter it. In other words, it divides the input frequency in half. These outputs (which are squarewaves) are run through low-pass filters to remove the har-monics and restore them to a more-nearly sinewave form. They are then mixed back with the original input, to the listener's taste.

Bass synthesizers have other uses than just enhancing the low end of movie soundtracks. Most commercial recordings have little energy below 40 or 50Hz. This is partly because all the little rolloffs at each step in the chain take their cumulative toll, and partly because record companies often deliberately roll off the response in this region, often to make LP mastering a less demanding business. A bass synthesizer could, in theory, make a worth-while contribution.

Another possible use would be in enhancing the bass output of small speakers. Many care-fully designed speakers can handle large amounts of bass power without a lot of clistor-

•

Audio Control Phase-Coupled Activator


tion. A bass synthesizer could take advantage of this to get punchy sound from a small box.

Regardless of the application, bass syn-thesizers have three advantages over equal-izers. First, an equalizer cannot boost what does nor exist. Second, a synthesizer does not exaggerate rumble. Third, there is no increase in system gain. Therefore, synthesizers cannot cause feedback or mistracking.

Both units were run through a bypass test, with the bass restoration shut off or turned all the way down. The program source was CDs on a Denon DCD-3300 player.

Neither escaped unscathed. Both slightly

darkened the sound, losing some air, "deli-

cacy," and openness, along with a slight loss of depth. The Audio Control added a bit of steeliness to string tone. The dbx showed a slight loss of bass impact and heft(!). Both were surprisingly bad at rendering the col legno tappings about one minute into the fourth movement of Bartok's Concerto for Or-chestra (Solti, 1981). Neither the Audio Con-trol nor the dbx revealed all the subtleties or the full "wooden" quality of the tapping.

Still, their errors are primarily subtractive, and not too noticeable by themselves; only on direct comparison. Since the kind of program material that needs their ministrations is either probably defective in other areas, or the sort of thing where one is more interested in im-pact than subtlety, these errors are hardly crippling.

Though both units appear to work the same way, there is one fundamental difference you have to understand, if my descriptions of the synthesized bass qualities are to make any sense. The Audio Control PCA samples the signal surprisingly far up. It is still working in

that region between the upper bass and the lower lower midrange (around 120Hz), whereas the dbx 120 doesn't pay attention to anything above 100Hz. This difference is plain-ly audible on male voices, which are more like-ly to take on a heavy, rumbly quality when played through the PCA than when passed through the dbx 120.2 The 60Hz region is generally well-repro-

2 The PCA has an unusual feature to minimize this effect. When a strong mono component dominates the signal. the PCA shuts off the enhancement. Ocklly this feature works only on the hi-fi inputs. If any it should be on the video in-puts. Audio sources rarely have centered male voices; movies and TV have them all the time. If you own or buy the PCA. give some thought to switching the cables around.

duced through any medium and by any speakers. It doesn't really need the enhance-ment given by the PCA. The 120 h.as a separate control marked LF BOOST, which boosts the 55Hz region. dbx suggests that if there seems to be some discontinuity between the added bass and the rest of the audio range, this con-trol should be advanced to get a better "blend." Sort of the way an artist softens the line between two areas of different-colored oil paint.

In an attempt to make a rational evaluation, I decided to feed both units with a recording

of tympani that I had run through an equalizer to remove the bottom octaves. By simultane-ously switching the equalizer and the syn-

thesizer out of the circuit, I could get a fairly objective idea of how well the 120 and the PGA did their job.

My first problem was—how do you ra-tionally roll off the bass? I didn't know, so I tried an empirical/interactive approach. With both equalizers jacked all the way up, I tried to find some substantial equalizer roll-off that the synthesizers were able to fully correct for. Much to my surprise, I couldn't! Neither was

able to completely restore the fundamentals— and the PCA added a lot of unneeded "ruummpp" around 60Hz. To get a near-perfect match, I had to use so little roll-off that it made as much as no difference.

Well, I thought, at least these gadgets will enhance the bass that's already on the disc. My speakers are flat to 26Hz, so that ought to be

a lot of fun. I started with the end of Star 7kek III, where the Genesis planet blows up. Nothing. No effect. (Of course, the PCA sounded impressive, with its 60Hz "ruummpp," but I found I could duplicate that sound on the 120 by simply turning up LF BOOST all the way.) The lowest frequencies that pop the ears, rum-ble the belly, and generate a sonic cloud, simp-ly weren't being enhanced.

I started rummaging through my disks, both LP and CD, for bass drum and low-string recordings. I tried the Telarc Firebird, the Nim-

bus Symphony in 3 Movements, the RCA Burlesque for Piano and Orchestra, and The Isle of the Dead. Nothing. Almost no enhance-

ment, despite the fact that the dbx's display lights were going off like the 4th of July. Even worse, the slight enhancement I did

hear, though not boomy or muddy, suffered from extreme overhang. With either synthe-


sizer switched in, bass drum took substantially longer to die away. Since the added fundamen-tals are derived from the harmonics, which (I assume) die away more quickly than the fun-damentals, this is especially surprising.

In desperation, I hooked my amp to the compact TC-60 speakers that Phase Tech had

kindly loaned for my surround-sound decoder review (to appear next month). Finally! I could

hear a substantial difference when I switched in the synthesizers.

This doesn't make any sense. If I enhance bass frequencies, the enhancement should seem nearly identical on any speaker. If any-thing, the enhancement should be far more noticeable on the wide-range speaker, simply because it has more output in the bass region to begin with.

That these devices do work with small speakers is beside the point. Ignoring the fact that one might not have room for full-size speakers, why would anyone buy a $300 proc-essor to enhance the low end of $500 book-shelf speakers, when they could have bought floor models in the $800 to $900 range? In short, both the dbx 120 and the Audio Control PCA are of limited usefulness, even to the guy

LUXM

who just wants to blow his socks off. Of the two, the dbx is marginally superior, if only because it doesn't add a constant overlay of "ruummpp." I find nothing inherently wrong with the

concept of bass synthesis. Indeed, if digital audio processors ever appear, bass restoration will doubtless be one of their functions. The problem is that neither the Audio Control PCA nor the dbx 120 really do what is claimed for them. They do not fully restore the bass of material that has deliberately been rolled off. They don't do much to enhance the bass of a

truly wide-range system. When they do ap-pear to add bass, the added low end suffers from excessive overhang. Heard anecdotally, both products are nice-

sounding, and even impressive. Alas, more critical, extended listening shows how disap-pointing they are. Everyone likes to be over-whelmed with bass once in a while, and even the "perfectionist" audiophile can hardly be blamed if he wants one of these things for oc-casional use. But their failure to deliver the goods suggests that the prudent listener audi-tion carefully and purchase cautiously. S

AN T-117 TUNER Don Scott

Luxman T-117 tuner

FM Stereo/AM tuner with digitally synthesized tuning. Usable sensitivity: 1.6uV/9.28dBf mono, 5uV/19.2dBf stereo. 50dB stereo quieting sensitivity: 24uV/3213dBf with noise reduction; 30uV/34.7dBf without noise reduction. Capture ratio: 1.3dB. Selectivity: 85dB alternate channel, 20dB adjacent channel. S/N ratio at 65dBf: 85dB mono, 83dB stereo. Stereo total harmonic distortion: 0.01%. Stereo separation: 55dB. SCA rejection: 65dB. AM suppression ratio: 75dB. 19 and 38kHz products: 55dB. Power consumption: 15W. Dimensions: 173/8" W by 121/4" D by 23/8" H. Weight: 4 lbs. Price: $550. Approximate number of dealers: 250. Manufacturer: Luxman, 19145 Gramercy Place, Torrance, CA 90501. Tel: (213) 326-8000.

Two excellent Luxman tuners have been re-viewed in Stereophile: the now-obsolete TX-101 in Vol.7 No.7 and the still-available T-02 in Vol.9 No.3. The T-117 is the com-pany's latest answer to good FM reception,

and in many aspects it is superb. The T-117 is a very slim tuner with several

good and some questionable features: from

left to right on the top section are power on/off, preset selected display, 4-digit fre-


quency display, mode indicators, 24 presets with 12 A/B selections, and memory con-trols. The button section includes record calibrate, timer program for recording with a Luxman remote control system, wide-narrow IF bandwidth, and, yes—a combined auto seek, muting, and mono/stereo switch, fol-

lowed by a good-sized tuning rocker and large AM-FM selectors. The combined tun-ing, muting, and mono/stereo modes switch

is not a total disaster because the muting and stereo thresholds are very low and do not

normally interfere with operation of the tuner. However, separated functions give the operator more control. All lighting is in red or blue fluorescent.

Circuit Features

In dual or multiple IF bandwidth tuners, the progressive insertion of additional ceramic filters and associated circuitry may detune the IF amplification strip in relation to the fixed

tuning of the detector. Denon's approach is to use a balanced detector that doesn't care about slight IF mistracking. Harman/Kardon's approach is to phase-correct the time lag

created in the super-narrow IF strip by the four ceramic filters, and Yamaha shifts the IF frequency in a portion of the amplification strip to center-tune to the individual produc-tion filters used. The methods they use are all

interrelated because time, frequency, and phase are interrelated—a different road to the

same end. Not to be left out of the high-technology camp, Luxman has come up with a Computer ControllediWin Detector circuit. Their technical emphasis is not on IF-strip problems because though the T-117 is selec-tive, it is not as selective as the above group, and correspondingly doesn't need electronic cosmetics. Instead, Luxman emphasizes ob-taining the best S/N ratio and lowest distortion under weak and strong (over 30uV/34.7dBf)

signal levels with separate detectors and asso-

ciated IF circuitry optimized to each com-puter-determined condition. Surprisingly, there are no transition pops or clicks. The T-117 also uses a sliding high-blend to

reduce weak signal noise. The .circuit has merits and faults: it slides from 30uV down to approximately lOuV, and never goes to full mono, as with most variable high-blends. This approach maintains minimum 20dB

separation with weak signals, but leaves a

gray area of noisy reception from lOuV down to 4uV, at which point the tuner switches to quieter mono. Additionally, the blend is non-

defeatable —not a real problem, because an "in" position would probably be preferred. The company's other top tuner, the T-02, uses a fixed-ratio high-blend, which is far more usable for cable FM that has noise de-

spite its good signal strength. The ideal is to have a front-panel adjustable high-blend to suit reception conditions. This feature was on the old MR-78 and the recent Nikko Gamma 30 tuners.

Specifications and Performance This tuner is one of the most sensitive ever

manufactured. 1.6uV/9.2dBf provides dead-quiet reception—at least in mono—of signals that are noisy with tuners with typical 1.8-1.9uV sensitivity. (Other very sensitive tuners are the Proton 440 and the Revox B261RD.) The T-117 has 20dB adjacent-channel selec-tivity: not quite up to the H/K Citation 23, Denon TU-800, or the latest version of the

Onkyo T-9090, but still adequate for splatter-free reception of weak- or medium-strength signals adjacent to a signal not over 100uV. The tuner is also resistant to strong signal overload and splatter. Other specifications are adequate for good reception.

FM Sound Quality One thing that all. top-of-the-line Luxman tuners seem to do is receive a variety of sta-

tions with good fidelity. The T-117 is no ex-ception. There are no SCA birdies, the nar-

row bandwidth position does not appreciably distort signals, and the stereo S/N is 83dB — very quiet. I will stick my neck out by saying that this is one of ¡be best-sounding tuners

ever. On strong signals in the wide-band mode, there is no detectable distortion over the best reference I have (an 11-year-old San-

sui TU-9900). In brief, the T-117 could serve well as a studio monitor. Its stereo separation and clarity are exceptional, and basically mir-ror what is broadcast, good or bad. The Onix BWD1 reviewed in Vol.10 No.8 also shares these same finite audio qualities, but under more favorable reception conditions.

AM Section Some day a manufacturer will go all out and


build an AM tuner with the same fervor as re-cent FM designs. Luxman has done about a 60% job with its AM section. It has very low distortion, useful frequency response beyond 6kKz, and 200uV/m sensitivity on the higher end of the dial. Below 900kHz, however, con-siderable self-generated digital noise masks all but the strongest stations. Moving the loop antenna away from the chassis helps slightly.

Conclusion In the last two months my reference Class A tuner has been displaced by better products such as the T-I17. (Expect some changes in the next Stereophile "Recommended Compon-ents" list.) It may not be the ultimate tuner, but with a directional antenna it should be quite usable in 80% of reception applications. Rec-ommended.

FOLLOW UP Bedini 150/150 Mk.11 power amplifier

Those of you who read my original review of this solid-state amplifier (Vol.10 No.7) should not be surprised that the folks at Bedini were quite unhappy with my findings. After examin-ing the returned sample as well as listening to it, Bedini agreed that its sound quality left a lot

to be desired and diagnosed my unit as "defec-tive." To prove their case, a replacement am-plifier was sent for evaluation. According to John Bedini, a stringent quality-control pro-gram is maintained, but occasionally it is passi-ble for a unit that specs out OK but has some sonic misgivings to leave the factory. In order to ensure the customer's long-term satisfac-tion, Bedini—at no charge—will test any of their amplifiers that are suspected of not being 100%. The greatly improved sound of the sec-ond sample certainly bears out the veracity of Bedini's claim. The amp was auditioned after a 72-hour

warm-up period. It was left on continuously

during the testing period, as recommended by Bedini. Both the old Quad ESLs (with the Koval mod) and the Dahlia-Debra speakers were used. The rest of the system consisted of the Threshold FET-10 preamp, the SOTA vac-uum table, the SME V tonearm, and Monster Cable's Alpha Genesis 1000 cartridge. Of course, the Lesley Test (Sony PCM-F1 master tapes) was also conducted. My first listening impressions were of Les-

ley's voice on the Quads. The first impression was of a clean and very detailed soundstage

with just slight losses in the areas of transpar-ency, timbre accuracy, and imaging. There was a slight darkening of Lesley's lower register, which improved after about 30 minutes of ac-

tive playing but did not entirely disappear. The brilliance of the upper registers was somewhat diminished and flat-sounding, as if Lesley's voice had been transposed a semitone. The treble also evidenced traces of grain or coarse-ness. The spatial outlines of instruments within the soundstage were as flat as a pancake; ver-itable cardboard cutouts. These initial impressions held up with sub-

sequent analog program material. For exam-ple, Therese Juel's voice (cut Al on the Opus 3 Test Record 1) was not well focused within the soundstage, and, in general, spatial outlines lacked any sense of palpable realism. Sibilants were slightly out of control. The bass was tight in character, but the timbre of the double bass was not quite right. On cut A4, losses in trans-parency and upper-mid purity were noted, while on cut A10 the upper octaves were dry-sounding. In general, grain and grit were found to increase with volume level, and the amp sounded darker (but not murky) as it was pushed harder. The harmonic colors of David Abel's Guarnerius (Wilson Audio's recording of the Beethoven Piano and Violin Sonata) were distinctly dry and bleached, and much of the overtone sweetness was missing in ac-tion. On laudate! (Proprius 7800), resolution of individual voices in the chorus suffered somewhat, and the upper mids and treble were consistently dry and slightly grainy. The foregoing should not be interpreted•as

an attempt to shoot down the 150/150, but rather as evidence to the effect that it has not achieved perfection. To put my findings in perspective, I should note that the Bedini struck me at this point in time as edging much closer to perfection than any other similarly priced solid-state amplifier. Despite its short-


comings, the Bedini was quite listenable, with-out the harshness and zip that afflict lesser amps. In fact, it appeared to beat out anything else I could think of, solid-state-wise, at under a kilobuck. So at this point in the evaluation,

the Bedini, though lacking an inspirational sound quality, appeared to be a good value and stiff competition for anything close to its price point.

The 150/150 stock went up markedly when I tried it with the Dahlia-Debra speakers. I really struck gold! Apparently, this amp loves a dy-namic load. Suddenly, the soundstage came alive, with a much improved sense of dynamic

contrast and tonal verity. The music ebbed and flowed with greater conviction than on the Quads. The faults enumerated above were still audible, but collectively were not as intrusive.

The Bedini was able to drive the Dahlias to very high volume levels without strain or any signs of distress. Bass control was excellent.

Low-level detail resolution and midrange trans-parency again struck me more positively on the Dahlias. The amp was able to generate the drive and verve of live music whenever the program material cooperated. As the Bedini was now beginning to suggest

performance capabilities of far more expen-sive amplifiers, I re-ran the Lesley Test. While the timbre of Lesley's voice was still slightly tainted (though more natural then before), she was nonetheless projected onto the sound-stage in a believable fashion. How believable was she? Well, JGH, who happened to be pass-ing in the hallway, poked his head into my listening room to see if Lesley was inside,

which of course she was not. His comment was that she sounded real in the hallway. With the proviso that this amp he matched

with a dynamic speaker load, I can tell you that I'm quite high on the Bedini. It is capable of clean, detailed, and dynamic sound, with only

minor vestiges of a sonic signature. It is slightly dry and dark-sounding, and the imaging per-formance is clearly solid-stateish in that instru-ment outlines within the soundstage are flat, without 3-D palpability. Bass control and im-pact are very good, at least into 8-ohm nomi-nal loads. Overall, the 150/150 impresses me

a whole lot more than, sa); the Eagle 2, by vir-tue of the former's greater transparency and resolution capabilities. In my opinion, then, the 150/150 is a clear Class C selection and a winner at its asking price. —DO

Monitor Audio R952MD I reviewed these modest-looking, two-way (but three-driver), floorstanding loudspeakers last month. I concluded that their combina-tion of high sensitivity, superb transparency, excellent imaging and, for me, optimally

aligned bass, made them well worth the S I349/pair asking price, offsetting the rather forward mid-treble which is due, I am sure, to the intrinsically rising response of the twin woofers in this region. Prolonged listening

has not changed my opinion of the speakers' sound quality. However, the overall ease of the sound makes it very easy to demand too much of them in terms of dynamics. A week after Vol.11 No.1 went to press, I did some-thing that we always warn high-end neo-phytes against: I continuously clipped a rela-tively low-powered amplifier (50Wpc) into the speakers with a track that already had a high proportion of treble (Dave Edmunds' "Crawling from the Wreckage," a real air-

guitar special). The distortion components add to the load already being suffered by the tweeter, and in the case of a system using

first-order, shallow-slope filter slopes, as with the '952, the result is a terminally damaged HF unit.

The moral of this tale? Use of shallow cross-over slopes may result in increased trans-parency, but to be set against that is the in-creased vulnerability of the drive-units. Be warned. These Monitor Audios are thor-

oughbreds rather than streetwise punks, and should be treated accordingly. —JA

STEREOPHELE

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BUILDING A LIBRARY

Schubert's Great C-Major Symphony Christopher Brett nig

Schubert's "Great" C ma-jor Symphony (D.944),while following the pattern of a Haydn

symphony, expands on the scale of Beet- s

hoven's Seventh and forms a bridge to the scope and length of Bruckner's—the drama } and turbulence of the slow movement a ro-mantic breaking of the classical mold (strange-ly pre-echoing Tchaikovsky's Fifth, one might

argue.) It was completed in the year following Beethoven's death.

There is slight confusion over numbering here: recently, EMI has decided to follow the

New Complete Edition and revised Deutsch Thematic Catalogue, exchanging the custom-ary 9 for 8 (which everyone knows as the "Un-

finished"!). To add to this confusion, DG used to adopt the old numbering, Seven, for this, the last Schubert symphony. There was no superstition on Schubert's part, as there was to be with Gustav Mahler, although like Mahler he never heard his Ninth performed. He had the bad luck to offer it to the Vienna Musik-verein in 1828; the parts were copied out and rehearsals begun. The work was then set aside as "too long and too difficult," although the first two movements were heard in Vienna in 1839—after which one critic wrote that it suggested "a little conflict between instru-ments, out of which no clear picture emerged. Admittedly a red thread ran through the whole,

but it could not be discerned because it was too pale pink."! The complete symphony, albeit heavily cut, was premiered in that same year, when Mendelssohn conducted it at the

Leipzig Gewandhaus. He had been sent the score by Schumann (at that time best known as the principal critic of the Nene Zeitschrift music journal), who had traveled to visit the tombs of Beethoven and Schubert, and then to see the composer's brother Ferdinand, who kept a collection of Schubert's manuscripts.

Though Schumann spoke of its "heavenly lengths," the orchestral musicians were not so enthusiastic—the endless figurations in the finale were pronounced unplayable. Nowadays the "Great" is in almost every am-

bitious conductor's repertory, and has been

endlessly recorded, if not from Abbado to Zin-man then from Arturo Toscanini to Zubin Mehta. The problem with assessing these

recordings is that so many of them are attrac-tive, in parts if not the whole. And, speaking of the whole, do you want all repeats? The ftill


heavenly lengths, as in the recordings of Muti, Tate, Barenboim, Davis, or Loughran? In the Levine/Chicago SO version on DG, a spinoff from the 1983 Ravinia Festival performances, the outer movements were deprived of exposi-tion repeats while all those in (iii) were observed, an unbalanced apportionment —Levine's Scherzo is 14:03 vs Toscanini's 8:47. And how sensitive are you to tempo rela-

tionships? Carlo Maria Giulini, in any case a most reserved musician, says he avoided con-ducting the Ninth for many years, until he saw the autograph and realized the intended rela-tionship between the Andante introduction and the first movement's Allegro non troppo. Intuitively, he'd always thought the acceleran-do most conductors made from one to the other was wrong. He saw that Schubert's manuscript time-signature for the Andante was two to the bar—not four, as shown in the Breitkopf printed edition—which meant the equation of triplet eighth-notes there to triplet quarter-notes in the Allegro. Even so, "a ghast-ly mistake" was the reaction of one reviewer, though for another, something "I always

hoped to hear." More recently, last November, Sir Charles

Mackerras followed that precedent in what was possibly the first London concert perfor-mance with a period-instrument ensemble (the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment). The reading was then recorded for the new classical division of Virgin. When a work has attracted interpreters of

such widely differing temperaments, the results must vary accordingly—from the monumentality of Klemperer and Tate, to the geniality of Krips and Walter, the imperious-ness of Szell, the nerviness of Tennstedt, the dynamism of Toscanini and Munch, then to the less markedly personal but still pleasingly musical versions of Haitink, Sawallisch, and Levine. On records, Schubert 9 ranges from the classically restrained (Boult) to the grandiose and impersonal (Muti). One 1987 release, greeted with very little

sympathy by the critics, seems to me of special interest when viewed as a kind of homage to the spirit of what was, many would argue, the

greatest of all Schubert Ninths. The extremely slow introduction to the work in the Daniel

Barenboim recording with the Berlin Philhar-monic (CBS M42316, CD MK42316) forewarns of an approach to the text that harks back to

an eailier style of interpretation, freer in tempo changes than is now the current fashion. In the

slow movement Barenboim makes much of the big climax, with trombones and strings— almost a screaming anguish there, in the resonance of the Philharmonie acoustic; then a wearied delivery of the strings/oboe material that hints of consolation to come, a trill signal-ing the resumption of the song-like main theme. The precedent for all this, of course, lies in

the Wilhelm Furtwangler recording with (nominally) the same orchestra, produced by DG in December 1951 and first issued on three 12" LP sides, later in various reincarnations. Now it comes on CD with the Rosamunde Overture (415 660-2). There are four other Furtwangler Ninths on worldwide labels, but it is this historic and exhaustive traversal that stirred not just the young Barenboim set of the

'60s, but prompted Claudio Arrau, on more than one occasion, to cite its penetrative in-sights. Furtwangler's achievement there was to express the widest emotional range with a plasticity that never allowed a suspicion of "imposition" on the music to arise; rather, he reached the inspirational centers of the movements. Such sublimity comes but once. But, at an

opposite extreme, yet no less overwhelming in its way, there was the unexpected stature of a Boston SO Ninth under Charles Munch, issued by RCA in 1960. Munch's second move-ment has a resolute, positive tread, with strong timpani accents and slight rallentandos "con-tradicted" with a vigorous resumption of the basic pulse. It is Munch who makes the ac-celerando approach the movement's climax

(very much a Furtwangler trait), and its resolu-tion has a peaceful, unequivocally optimistic spirit. The exuberant pacing of Munch'sfinale has

a graceful flow that differs only slightly from that of George Szell's 1970 Cleveland recording for Angel (made just three months before his

death). In the second subject the Bostonians are freer, less strictly reined than the Cleveland Orchestra. Szell had a way of stopping the music from smiling—pace RU—yet the sheer

beauty of his introduction to the symphony (each pizzicato in its place, the long legato

phrases impeccably contoured) makes this Ninth equally worth seeking at the deletion specialists'.


Another gramophone classic, long in the LP catalog, has yielded to CD to form part of a complete set of the Schubert Symphonies: the BPO version under Karl Bohm of 1963. The cycle as a whole (DG 419 318-2, 4CDs) typifies what the veteran German conductor Gunter Wand calls "the Perfektions-orchester" man-ner, but is none the worse for that—far from it. I would not like to have to choose between

Bohm and Wand's own Schubert series, hap-pily available on single CDs (EMI/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi). Wand's Ninth, very stimu-lating, was one of the first to be done, and he says he would like to re-record it now Wand excels in the earlier works—which Bohm did not even want to conduct, until DG persuaded him to tackle them in 1972-3.

It's a pity DG opted for the much later Bohm live recording with the Dresden Staatskapelle

for separate CD reissue (419 484-2); this has some mannered speeds, and the digital proc-

essing is not very agreeable. With Karajan, it is a case of the earliest of his three recordings, the 1946 one with the VP0 on Toshiba (EAC-30104) being preferable musically to either of the BPO stereo remakes. Of those, I find the DG more interesting than do most reviewers, but little of absorption in the EMI (part of an unmemorable 1977-8 cycle on LP). The hours of work that went into resusci-

tating Tosc-anini's 1941 Philadelphia Ninth from

damaged acetates is part of recording lore. But was the effort worth it? In my view the maestro's own NBC Orchestra, in the February 53 Carnegie Hall alternative (to the '47 Victor), gave by far the more characteristic account, and I am glad this was made available again on RCA Gold Seal (GL 85246) a couple of years ago. Even though digitally mastered, it still sounds acceptable enough in German DMM pressings. Whether from La Scala, Philadelphia, or

even Vienna, the recent EMI/Angel recordings meted out to Riccardo Muti can hardly be said to be technically distinguished. His new VPO

Schubert Ninth (CDC 747 6992) will surprise those who associate the producer James Mallinson with excellence—or who already own his Berlin/Barenboim production for CBS. The way the cellos loom up from the right-hand speaker early on in the recording I found disconcerting, and the general quality combines a bland unreality with potential ag-. gressiveness. But then, with its machine-like

oiled precision, the performance itself seems to offer little apart from conducting virtuosity. Far more rewarding, in every was is Sir Georg Solti's "Great" with this orchestra, a 1981 Sofiensaal production by—yes, James Mallinson again! This early CD release from Decca is still

to be heard as a demonstration disc (400082-2). A satisfying reading, if not especially "Vien-

nese— —nor was the old Kertesz/VPO Decca. If warmth is your principal aim, the earlier Krips/LSO Decca Ninth is the one to search out; but if you like a more classical style, yet still with glowing orchestral playing, then Sawallisch and the Dresden Orchestra— perhaps my own choice for what might be called "everyday" listening—are better still.

Though the Philips sound needs a good system to open it out: in sonic character it is rather dull, although some congestion lends a false brightness to the top.

Sawallisch's finale is small-scaled, though,

when set beside Tate's. Tate conducts the Dresden Staatskapelle, too, in an EMI /VEB coproduction (CDC 747 4782). You cannot but admire the integrity here (especially rhythmic),

which extends to the purist balancing tech-niques favored by producer David Groves. But the digital sound is faintly cold and forbidding, and one or two reviewers gave up on the reading too, finding it marmoreal. It follows the Klemperer manner and, if decidedly not for everyday listening, surely ranks with the two or three outstanding realizations to be had.

Sir Adrian Boult's performances with the BBC SO were highly regarded in his day; his LPO recording suffers from some untidy ensemble, but this does not mask his evident convictions about the piece. Some of the or-

chestral balances are as revealing as his grip on tempi. The 1972 analog LP sounds very good (EMI SXLP30558), the recut being brighter, if less weighty, than the superior original transfer. As with their Elgar and Vaughan Williams re-cordings, Boult and Barbirolli differ markedly The deleted Halle Ninth (1966 EMI) tingles with feeling in the finale, where Boult's bris-tles with rhythmic firmness—Barbirolli is less powerful in the merely rhetorical accenting, but excels in the lyricism and molding of in-

ner support lines, as well as in drawing the listener in to the dramas of Schubert's flowing soundscapes.


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The Linear Field Transducer incorporates an impressive list of technical innovations: a computer-designed, chemically etched voice element for uniformity and low mass; push-pull configuration (with mag-nets on both sides of the diaphragm) for linear performance, without dis-tortion or dynamic compression; a precision-welded structure for extreme rigidity without compromising dispersion performance; carefully controlled damping to reduce unwanted interaction between the different driver segments, for freedom from "veiling" or colorations.

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CLASSICAL

ARENSKY: Symphonies 1 and 2 levgeni Svetlanov, USSR Symphony Orchestra

Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab MFCD 878. A-D. 'Ft 58:54

Those wondering why the music of Anton

Stepanovich Arensky isn't heard much these days need search no farther than this release to find the reasons. On the other hand, this

disc is also evidence that his music should not be forgotten altogether.

Arensky had all the outward makings of a great Romantic artist: addictions to alcohol and gambling, even an early death from tuber-culosis. Born in Novgorod in 1861, he died in a Finnish sanitarium in 1906. Rimsky-Korsakov

was his teacher, Rachmaninov and Scriabin his pupils.

What he lacked was the fire of a great soul. The little in his work that is original is usually handled sophomorically, and if you find that the music of Arensky reminds you of some-thing, it is probably the music of Mendelssohn, Rimsk y Korsakov, or Chopin.

Symphony 1, which won the composer a gold medal from the St. Petersburg Conserv-atory, is very approachable, but very predict-able as well. An intriguing, mysterious melody in the third movement and folk elements in the fourth form the most successful sections, but they are not enough to banish the feeling that

you've gotten all the composition has to offer in the first hearing.

The unusual form of Symphony 2, like many of Arensky's techniques, rings more of novelty than of originality. The second move-

ment of this work, however, is an appealing

piece of night music with a beautiful, extended viola solo. Other promising themes receive mechanical, perfunctory development.

So why should we not completely forget Arensky's music? Well, the answer is that it contains just enough of interest to get by. One of these symphonies could certainly replace an umpteenth performance of Also Sprach Zarathustra on some orchestra's program. His music is also easily comprehended, which may entice novice listeners to seek out more satis-fying stuff.

The performances on this disc were recorded by the Soviet Union's Melodiya, and while the sound is somewhat dull and constricted in nearly all aspects, the playing is of prosely-tizing fervor. Bereft of recorded comparisons, the interpretation and execution seem aptly fitting to the best intentions of the music.

This recording will not be a blockbuster for MFSL, nor will it start an Arensky revival. It

may not even make a second appearance on your spinner. But it does open a window on a lesser light of a past era. That may help us

understand our own musical times better. — Robert Hesson

BEETHOVEN: Piano Sonatas Nos. 5, 6, 7, II, 15, & 20 Itermint Roberts, piano

Nimbus NI 5054 (CD). Nos. DDD. IT: 5-1:32

Nimbus NI 5055 (CD), Nos. I I, IS. & 20. DDD. 58:11

So much has been written about Beethoven's music that the only real question is: In light of the towering pianists of the past and today who have recorded his music, is there anything new to be said?

By all means, yes. Differences of period style alone are abundant. I am not talking about at-


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tempts at historical accuracy, but rather the

style of the performer's own day. I refer to the obvious differences in performing style be-tween the 1930s romantic intellectualism of

Artur Schnabel, the post-WWII drama of Sviato-slav Richter, the current original- or period-instrument approach of Michael Bilson, or the modern school of unadorned, clear-cut in-telligence of a Bernard Roberts, just to name a few of the more outstanding artists whose recordings we have.

Roberts is one of Britain's leading pianists, as Nimbus's notes tell us, with a repertoire from the early classics to the 20th century And like most musicians worth a damn, he plays for the audience of today—an audience exposed to a breadth and depth of music and musicians unheard of before the advent of recordings and radio. Roberts is rerecording all of the

Beethoven sonatas DDD. (His direct-to-disc Beethoven sonata cycle of the late 1970s

helped put Nimbus's name on the map.) These

two CDs, discs five and six in the series, are commanding in their self-effacing style and unified manner. While Beethoven did usher out the Classic era and establish the Roman-

tic, these facts do not interfere with Roberts's refreshingly strong view. For example, Richter (Philips, op) definitely lets you know the origins of the Haydnesque Sonata No. 20, and Schnabel (EMI, op) repeatedly displays the fact that Beethoven was a big-time romantic, while Bilson (Nonesuch) is given to romanticizing on a tinkly-sounding instrument. Roberts, on the other hand, plays a concert grand with a mesmerizing clarity and directness. The sound, while not up to the ideal

represented by James Boyk's recordings, is ex-cellent, with a warm ambience about half-way back in a reasonably resonant hall. For those

interested, the recording is, like most Nimbus releases, Ambisonic UHJ encoded. If you want more performer's style and personality, look elsewhere. If you want more Beethoven, you are at home here

—William A.C. Furtwangler

BOYCE: 8 Symphonies Trevor Pinnock. English Concert

Archiv 419 631-2 (CD). Dr. Gerd Ploebsch, recording sup , Dr. Andreas Holschneider, Charlotte Kriesch, prods. DDD. TE 60:04

Every few years some forgotten composer once held in high esteem by his contem-poraries is "rediscovered." J.S. Bach, of course,

heads the list, thanks in part to Felix Mendels-sohn's resurrection of his St. Matthew Passion in 1829. But there have been numerous others whose music lay dormant after their deaths

until some adventuresome performer (or pro-ducer) decided that it should be heard (or might sell).

A recent beneficiary of such enterprises is the Englishman William Boyce, who lived from 1711 to '79. Although much of his exten-

sive oeuvre was never published and is lost, a good deal remains; based on the musical quality of these symphonies, one hopes that

future examinations of his work will not be long in coming. Among his many accomplishments, Boyce

held several posts as church organist, during which he produced a steady stream of com-positions for liturgical use. He received his greatest recognition for theater music, how-ever, and the symphonies, published in 1760, are largely drawn from his earlier dramatic works and odes. Scored for strings, continuo, and assorted winds (including trumpets and tympani in No.5), they are notably succinct, with the shortest (No.3) running only about five minutes and the longest (No.8) a mere ten

minutes. The first five are cast in the three-movement fast-slow-fast scheme derived from

the Italian overture, and none of the set challenges the tonal conventions of its day. But appearances can be deceiving: within this rather straightforward formal arrangement, Boyce has crafted eight thoroughly captivating little gems.

In common with most 18th-Century English composers, Boyce worked under Handers im-

posing shadow, and there is certainly more than a trace of Handelian stateliness and har-

monic richness to be found here. Nonetheless, these are not pieces that simply chug along in

accepted period parlance; Boyce's way of flesh-ing out simple forms is both imaginative and varied. His often motivically constructed melodies bubble over with grace and regal charm and sometimes—as during the Minuet movement of No.3 —evince an affecting sweet-ness as well. His skill at contrasting dramatic tension with relaxed tunefulness is as highly developed as his contrapuntal writing is pol-ished (consider here the barn-burner of a fugue which closes the first movement of No.7).

Happily, nothing in the way of style or con-tent escapes harpsichordist/conductor Pin-


flock and the English Concert. If you're one of those who stil: thinks that the use of

"original instruments" spells expressive bland-ness (and God knows that, in some hands, it does), you're in for a treat. The Concert's in-tonation is consistently right on the yellow line, and these recreations are, in all, models

of scholarly care, ensemble finesse, and sen-sitive musicianship. While Pinnock's tempi are

generally on the slow side, much faster ones would surely dilute the music's inherent ma-

jesty and, if you will, English swagger—quali-ties which are brightly illuminated on the CD.

Orchestral balances and timbres have been captured by Archiv's engineers with appeal-ing naturalness, and instruments are secure-ly placed spatially. Personally, I find the reso-nant, empty-hall acoustic to be larger than life

for what are essentially chamber-sized works realized on intimately scaled instruments. But this is a minor complaint in what is otherwise

a musical delight in every way. —Gordon Emerson

BRAID'S: Symphony 4; BEETHOVEN: Egmont Overture Fritz Reiner (Brahms). Rene Leibowitz (Beethoven), RP()

Chesky CD6 (CD). Kenneth G. Wilkinson. eng Charles Gerhardt. prod. SPARS Code not given—Analog original. TT: e:31

When Fritz Reiner listened to a test pressing of this recording he had made on a summer visit to London in 1963, he declared it to be the most beautiful recording he had ever made. This statement may have ruffled some feathers among the personnel of the Chicago Sym-

phony, which he had led for a decade and made into one of the world's greatest orches-

tras, and with which he had made dozens of landmark recordings. Nonetheless, hearing this Brahms 4 now, one can understand how he would have been moved to utter the thought.

Fragile health had forced Reiner to relin-quish his position as Musical Director at Chicago at the close of the 1962-63 Season, but his post-retirement plans were nothing less than ambitious. The Brahms 4 was an inter-esting assignment which drew Reiner into the ranks of the leading senior conductors of the period for a Reader's Digest subscription-

record series. It had class: the Royal Philhar-monic, Sir Thomas Beecham's own orchestra. Sir Thomas and Reiner were close friends and mutual admirers—Sir Thomas had appeared

as a guest conductor on many occasions in Chicago.

In the Fall of 1963, Reiner was to appear at the Metropolitan Opera to lead a new produc-tion of Gotterdammerung; record Haydn's 95th and 101st symphonies for RCA with a

hand-picked orchestra of Metropolitan Opera, NYPO, and old NBC SO personnel; and visit

the CSO, where RCA had scheduled him to record the suites from Bartok's Miraculous Mandarin and Kodaly's Nary Janos. The Haydn works were recorded, but recurrent ill-ness brought Reiner to the hospital, where he

died—one week to the day before President Kennedy was assassinated. I heard Reiner and the Chicago Symphony

perfonn Brahms's 4th in December, 1962. That performance has had few rivals since, and cer-tainly remains unsurpassed. This recording

doesn't surpass it, but it's the next best thing by a very close margin, really too close to call. Its only current rivals in any recorded format

are by Toscanini, Walter, Wand, and Kleiber. Lurking in the background is some truly ex-cellent Brahms recorded about 20 years ago by Kurt Sanderling in Dresden, currently unavailable. And when CBS gets around to is-suing CDs of Szell's Brahms, we'll have an in-teresting horse race indeed.

Rivalry aside, and with all the merits these

other conductors possess, I doubt seriously whether there will ever be another Brahms 4 quite like this one, so restrained in its disci-pline, yet so deeply felt, and so beautifully played by the orchestra. Reiner was not known to wear his heart on his sleeve, and some listeners may be left cold by an approach to

Brahms in which the mind governs the heart.

If, on the other hand, you've had enough bombast from the current crop of young

curly-haired moppets in their turtle-neck shirts and designer jeans, this just could be

your cup of tea. This is a performance of such subtlety, yet such intensity, that it may be

returned to again and again, with new insights

to be gained at each repeated hearing. I missed the original Reader's Digest issue,

and didn't hear this recording until RCA reissued it on its mid-priced Gold Seal LP

series. More recently it reappeared on the Quintessence label. The RCA was as murky as the Quintessence was overbright and bass-shy, like a bad CD.

The Chesky is neither a bad CD, nor merely

a good CD. It is a great CD. The original pro-duction in Walthamstow Town Hall was more


intimate and less reverberant than Reiner's

Chicago recordings, and this is very much in keeping not only with the smaller concert halls in Europe, but European orchestral dynamics, which are not quite so grandiose as those of American orchestras. The Chesky transfer into the digital format is one of the finest of its type I have ever heard. It truly sounds analog in the best sense of the term, with all the advantages of CD. Dave and Norm Chesky are strongly committed to analog vinyl, but they are equal-ly committed to the improvement of CD. So

far, their CDs have been no less remarkable than their vinyl issues from the RCA Living Stereo series.

If I appear to have given short shrift (or none

at all) to the Egmont Overture conducted by Rene Leibowitz, please excuse me. Palk about an underrated conductor! Whew—what a whirlwind of a performance, and no cheap shots or vulgar exaggerations, just clear-minded insights, and magnificent playing from the RPO. In this, the Brahms, and in each of

the previous Chesky releases from this series, it's difficult to believe these are studio record-ings. The spirit of communication is of an order we usually expect from an orchestra playing before the public. This is a CD to have

in one's collection for performance and sound, and Chesky is a label to watch for future re-leases, on vinyl and CD. —Richard Schneider

BRUCKNER: Symphonies 3 & 4* Gunter Wand, Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra EMI Deutsche Harrnonia Mundi CDC 747 7442 (CD), CDC 74' '452' (CD). Otto Nielen, Hermann Rantz, Hans-Georg Daehn," engs.; Dr. Hermann Lang, prod. ADD. TTs, 55:06. 64 :21'

Bruckner's Third Symphony exists in three versions: the original 1873 version only became available in 1984, when it was recorded by lnbal with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra in a 4-disc set with the original ver-

sions of Symphonies 4 and 8. This first work-ing of ideas contained numerous quotes from the operas of Wagner, the work's dedicatee, in

its first, second, and fourth movements, but these were mostly omitted in the extensive revisions that Bruckner later made to the score. Inbal's highly praised performance of this ver-sion is now available singly on Teldec ZK8

42922. The second (1878) revision still exists in Haitink's 1965 performance on Philips SAL 3506, and in Kubelik's 1985 Bavarian RSO per-

formance, now on CD from CBS (MK 39033).

The third (1889) revision, performed here by Wand, has the legendary Karajan/BPO record-

ing (CD: DG 413 362-2) to compete with, and Chailly's more recent London recording (CD: 417 093-2) with the Berlin RSO. This makes the choice somewhat bewildering, but for ardent Brucknerites at least one recording of all three versions would seem a necessity.

It might as well be said at the outset that the shortcomings of Wand and the Cologne RSO in the Symphony are too many to make it a real

contender in this strong field. The first move-

ment has drive enough, but rhythms are loose and uninspiring, and coordination is often

poor. The slow movement fails to take notice-able account of tempi changes between An-dante quasi allegretto and Langsamer sec-tions, and the strings lack the body to fully release the emotional impact of the score. In the Scherzo the recording misjudgment noted

in Vol.10 No.9 in Symphonies 1 and 2 (which allows the brass to break through and smother all else in the tutti sections) must take the lion's

share of the blame for the imbalance created here. All we are left with are brass and wood-wind blasting out of rhythm, the theme on strings being virtually inaudible. The Trio is pleasantly insouciant in its rustic declamation,

but ends scrappily at the Scherzo's recapitula-tion. The Finale needs a certain rhythmic ten-sion to develop full strength and power, and to draw its sprawlingly diverse themes into

satisfying cohesion, and although Wand cer-tainly achieves momentum here, string osti-nato figures, particularly that which accom-panies the opening theme, lack conviction and

seem to chug along without purpose or direc-tion. By contrast, the Polka theme is delicately done and emerges as the most satisfying mo-ment of the movement, thus rendering the

movement itself an unsatisfying climax to the work.

But if this cannot be a recommended ac-

count of the Third Symphony, the same is hardly true of the Fourth. Here Wand stands in almost childlike awe of the work, his sen-sitivity revealed through a performance touch-

ing in its understatement, the grand gesture never clouding his view or enforcing a self-

consciousness. The orchestra is better coor-dinated and more accurate here too, respond-

ing well to Wand's serene, meditative reading of the opening. If the strings sound a little steely, they handle phrasing so sensuously, and


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dynamics so beautifully that tone quality seems to matter very little in this context. The still, funereal mood of the Andante is also sensitively handled, the music unfolding at its own unhur-

ried yet purposeful pace, and the same can be said of the difficult Finale, which moves ever forward with unpressured momentum as a result of finely integrated tempi. Perhaps most strongly characterized is the Scherzo, its open-ing woodland horns suggesting a fresh,

elemental atmosphere, so compatible with the serenely bucolic Trio.

Wand responds to this "Romantic" Sym-phony not with the grandeur and majesty of, say, Bohm or Jochum, but with the care and concern of someone opening a precious gift, intent only to reveal its contents and delight

in its beauty Fortunately the recording mirrors this with a greater clarity than the previous

three symphonies have enjoyed. There is good depth and spread here, and, despite the reso-nance of the venue, lines and textures tend to emerge uncluttered. My only complaint is at the abrupt loss of ambience at the end of the second movement, but that is a small price to pay when weighed against the merits of this very fine issue. —Barbara Jahn

GERSHW1N: Rimpsody in Blue, An American in Paris Earl Wild. piano, Pasquale Cardillo, clarinet, Arthur Fiedler. Boston Pops Orchestra

Chesky Records RC 8 (LP). Jack Adelman. mg., David and Nor-man Chesky. prods. Tr 323'

Originally an RCA Living Stereo release from the early '60s, this Chesky Records Gershwin LP is a miracle of modern engineering tech-niques. The fidelity of this album rivals the very

best of anything being turned out today es-pecially remarkable given the length of time that has passed since its transcription.

Earl Wild's performance in Rhapsody in

Blue is unique—his always-introspective in-terpretation offers a refreshing alternative to the usual fare. Sometimes, though, he seems a little behind himself (certainly acceptable in

jazz, but it takes some getting used to here). Otherwise, this excellent Rhapsody is dramatic and quite spirited.

Arthur Fiedler's insightful interpretation of

An American in Paris follows the natural ebb and flow between the brash American and the elegant French settings. No other version that I have heard brings out this contrast so artfully, with no theme overstated; the momentum of the piece is maintained. In the past this has

always been one of my least favorite of Gersh-win's works, but Fiedler's mastery has increased

both my understanding and enjoyment of what had previously seemed a disjointed piece.

Despite the fact that both composer and conductor were associated with pop music, this performance is in the highest traditions of concert music: superb composition and pa-tient, clear, insightful conducting. The record lacks nothing. The orchestra is

just sitting there between your speakers—no more, no less. This is surely the height of natural, unadulteratedly great sound, making one wonder what other treasures remain to be unlocked by Chesky's engineers. High praise should also go to RCA's original recording and maintenance of the master tape. Bravissimo!

Please bring us more. —James Berwin

HAYDN: Symphonies 101 ("The Clock") & 104 ("London")

Adam Fischer, Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra Nimbus NI 5105 (CD). DOD. TT: 60:14

According to the notes accompanying this disc,

the Austro-Hungarian Haydn Orchestra is comprised of musicians drawn from the Vien-na and Budapest Philharmonics and brought together to "perform and record Haydn's major orchestral works in the places where he lived and coinposed." This initial release in the series directed by Adam Fischer does not augur well for what may follow. These are competent but thoroughly un-

distinguished readings, blemished by a num-

ber of shortcomings. Most notable among them is a pervasive smoothing away of what ought to be sharply etched motifs. It is, after

all, such motifs that—through dissection, per-mutation, and growth—generate Haydn's grand sonata designs. When those motifs are eroded, much of the music's thrust, tension, and drama is wiped away. Also disturbing is

Fischer's failure to exert firm control; this is

most apparent in the way passages sometimes race ahead, fracturing rhythmic backbone and structural coherence in the process. The or-chestra plays well enough, but the winds fail

to articulate with the kind of crispness needed to bring out the wit, color, and (at times) poignancy so typical of these works. Complementing these shortcomings is Nim-

bus's rather coarse sound, strings especially

having a hard, unpleasant edge. Neither of

these works is as yet represented by a first-class


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account in the laser format. Nevertheless, the CD editions of Raymond Leppard (Erato 75141) and Herbert von Karajan (DG 410517-2), if not the last word in stylishness and vivaciousness, offer better sound, suaver orchestral execu-tion, and more of the quintessential Haydn. Fischer observes exposition repeats in both first movements. —Mortimer H. Frank

LISZT: The Virtuoso Liszt

Mephisto N‘Ultit'S I. 2, 3, 4; Mephisto Polka Mosonyi's Funeral Procession; to Petoefi's Memory; Hungarian Rhapsodies 16, 1-, 18, & 19 Jeffrey Swann, piano

Music & Arts CD-245 (CD). Nlaggi Payne, eng. & prod. DOD. TT 6526

With the exception of the popular first Mephisto Waltz of 1859, all the pieces in this intriguing anthology represent the late Liszt, when the aging Abbe of the 1870s and '80s leaned in the direction of the harmonically enigmatic, the sparse, and the introspective. Hearing the 36-year-old American pianist Jeffrey Swann range with his incredibly fleet fingers through the diableries of the composer's favorite Faust subjects, as well as the equally active Friska sections of the last four late Hungarian Rhap-sodies, one realizes that this album is, after all, very aptly named. There is considerable ex-citement to be heard here, but there are also moments of poetic sentiment, most obviously apparent in the love section of the second Mephisto Waltz and the closing portion of the gloomy Mosonyis' Funeral Procession (Mosonyi, a Hungarian nationalist composer, died in 1870). The latter piece, and the equally rare-

ly heard elegy in memory of the poet Petoefi, by the way, would be my own very strong reasons for acquiring this album, but you should make a note that their order is reversed in the printed sequence of pieces. In general,

Swann can be described here as a pianist very much of the modern no-nonsense style, ab-solutely brilliant technically—even rla271ing—

but less interested in evoking the colors and shadings, or the more ruminative sensibilities, of an older generation of pianists. The piano, a German Steinway, seems a little harder and

drier on top than one might have expected,

and in playback could, I feel, benefit from a boost in the bass. —Igor Kipnis

LISZT: Piano Music Earl Wild, piano

Transcriptions & Paraphrases: Beethoven: Symphony I; Liszt: Die Loreley; Schumann:

Fruhlingsnacht. Widmung; Chopin: My Joys; Schubert: Du hist die Ruh. Soirees de Nienne -; Wagner: Spinning Chorus from The Flying Dutchman; Weber: Der Freiscbutz Over-

ture; Paganini: Grandes Etudes 2, 3. e 5; Hach: Fantasia & Fugue in g (BWV 542); Verdi: Rigoletw Paraphrase Etcetera KTC 2011 (2 CDs). Kelly Higgins. mg.: Michael Rolland Davis, prod. ODD. TT: 103:50 Sboupieces for Piano:

Herz: Variations on "Non piu MCSI.2;*. Liszt: Reminiscences de Don Juan (after Mozart), Reminiscences de Robert le Diable —Valse Infernale (after Meyerheer); Thaiberg: Don

Pasquale Fantasy; Godowsky: Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes from Johann Strauss's "Kunstlerlehen" Vanguard 'CI) -2010 (CD). AAD. TT: 64:10

The hundredth anniversary of Liszt's death in 1986 succeeded in celebrating an almost com-plete reversal of attitude toward a composer too often previously thought of as brilliant but

shallow, popular but rhetorically empty. Earl Wild's 2-CD set, one of three (the others, still forthcoming, are Liszt as Virtuoso and Liszt as Poet), gives about as good a sampling of Liszt the Transcriber as can be conceived. Why did the composer go to the trouble in

the first place? Among a number of reasons,

including wanting to do technically for the piano what Paganini had done for the violin (viz such Paganini Etudes included here as La Capricciosa, La Chasse, and the familiar La Campanella), Liszt enabled audiences of all kinds to become familiar with a larger reper-

toire than they might otherwise have been able to hear. We must remember that the phono-graph did not exist then, nor was the disper-

sion of music as pervasive as it is now; in many cases if one wanted to become familiar with

a piece of music one would have to play it at home on the family piano. Thus, a possible subheading for the present album might be "Liszt the Proselytizer." Sometimes the transcriptions were remarkably straight and highly accurate to the source; the Beethoven Symphony, for instance. Or there could be

what Liszt termed a Paraphrase, in which the basic melodies and harmonies of the original would be extravagantly supplemented and

transformed into a superbly worked-out con-cert piece: the Chopin Polish song, the lovely set of Schubert waltzes (No.7 of the Soirees de Vienne, incidentally, and not the more often

recorded No.6), or the Quartet from Rigoletto. Overall, this highly important aspect of

Liszt's output, as well as his personality, is splendidly sampled by the indefatigable Earl

Wild. (A number of years ago in Buenos Aires I heard him tackle, without any obvious strain,

a Sunday morning concerto program that con-


sisted of the Liszt First, Rachmaninov Second, and Tchaikovsky First, bringing them all off with technique to spare.) My own particular favorites here are Schumann's Widmung, with its gorgeously played middle section, the Rigoletto Paraphrase, in which the delicate

filigree is admirably projected, and, of course, the splashy, fun-filled Paganini Etudes. Wild's brilliance is well matched by a living-room-

like ambience, not overly reverberant but realistic and reasonably solid in the bass end.

In a word: impressive on all counts! Although only two of Liszt's operatic trans-

criptions are included on the Vanguard disc, the entire contents of this album can really be

described as a technical blockbuster in the most brilliant Liszt tradition, and was in fact so hailed when these performances were first issued on LP The Herz, Thalbeig, and Godow-sky (20th Century but with roots firmly in the pianistic extravagancies of the 19th) derive from The Virtuoso Piano, first issued in 1964;

the two operatic fantasies after Meyerbeer and Mozart were part of The Daemonic Liszt, re-

leased in 1968. In all cases, Wild's playing is stunning, even (to use that overquoted term accurately) awesome. What I find disappoint-ing, however, is that the transfer to CD has robbed the original LPs of some depth and bass. The piano is more distant than in the newly recorded album, and an A/B com-parison of LPs versus CD reveals the latter to be shallower, less bright, and even on occasion a little clattery (the sound in the Mozart in par-

ticular leans at times to harshness). If you add substantial bass and can tame the treble, how-

ever, you'll be able to enjoy some pretty amaz-ing pyrotechnics. —Igor Kipnis

MAHLER: Das Lied von der Erde Maureen Forrester, Richard Lewis, Fritz Reiner, Chicago SO RCA 5248-2-RC (CD). Lewis Layton, mg., Richard Mohr, prod.

ADD. TT: 6300

During Fritz Reiner's reign as Music Director of the CSO, Mahler's time had barely come. Reiner, who did not consider himself to be a "Mahlerian" conductor, expressed difficulty

in coming to terms with what seemed to many performers, as well as listeners of his era, a strange and uncompromising musical idiom. It is fascinating to note that he never performed the First Symphony (though that is the one Mahler symphony most readily accepted by the public, the boards of orchestras, and even

record companies) throughout the period of

Reiner's career. He did, however, embrace Songs of a Wayfarer, which he recorded with Carol Brice for CBS during his tenure as Music Director with the Pittsburgh Symphony. And interestingly enough, he performed the se-cond movement of Symphony 7 in Pittsburgh. In the '30s and '40s, that was often the only

way to sneak these advanced and challenging works into the repertoire. The only numbered Mahler symphony

Reiner ever performed was the Fourth, which he recorded for RCA, with soprano Lisa Della Casa as soloist. That recording, available on CD, requites a separate review in its own right. Reiner's only other Mahler recording in Chi-cago, Das Lied von der Erde, was taped on November 7 and 9,1959, the days immediately following performances at subscription con-certs. The original Red Seal LP release spread

the work generously over three sides, with Haydn's Symphony 88 as filler on side 4. It sounded magnificent, and still does. Subse-quent budget LP issues have compressed the work to two sides of a single LP, and compressed is definitely the right word. Whatever misgivings Reiner may have had

about Mahler are nowhere apparent in this recording. Every mood of this highly varied setting of ancient Chinese poetry is gauged with Reiner's uncanny sense of clarity, along with a depth of spirit which many followers

of vintage conductors have not associated with him. Maureen Forrester and Richard Lewis could have hired a van, considering the number of performances they have given of this work together over their respective careers.

They could probably sing it in their sleep. Here they are wide awake and singing their hearts

out in a performance which has earned the ad-miration of many highly critical vocal afici-

onados. Then there is the orchestral playing. I

challenge anyone to name a recording of Das Lied which features better playing than this one! Whether it's the full ensemble, consti-tuent groupings, or individual principal players in a variety of key solo passages, there is a

sense of style, polish, and control which make it little wonder that musicians from all over the world have beaten their paths to certain doors in Chicago for advanced or even remedial studies. My original "shaded dog" —SI stampers,


purchased as a new release—is in excellent shape. One doesn't listen to Das Lied a whole

hell of a lot; as great a work as it is, it is emo-tionally exhausting to experience The original LP has more depth in the orchestra, and the voices project from further back than on the CD. For those readers who prefer analog vinyl as a religion, I question the authenticity of this effect no matter how euphonic it may be. The

stage of Orchestra Hall is one of the widest and most shallow of the major world concert halls, and Mohr and Layton did not alter it, or the concert deployment of the orchestra, for recordings.

The CD gives the voices more presence than one would experience at a performance, but

the perspective on the orchestra is naturally balanced, if a bit one-dimensional. Whatever one's feelings on perspective, it is at least more

than apparent that we are hearing this music the way Reiner (and hopefully Mahler) wanted it to be heard.

For those listeners accustomed to hearing Mahler performed quite feverishly, and who associate this composer with "lush roman-

ticism," I recommend this CD as a highly suc-

cessful example of a more cerebral approach to his music Of equal importance is the record-ing process itself, which reveals the music and its performance without distracting, un-

like so many of today's recordings. —Richard Schneider

MENDELSSOHN: Piano Music Martin Jones, piano

Preludes, Fugues, and Studies Nimbus NI 50-'1 (CD). AAD. Tr: 61:30 Variations and Fantasies

Nimbus NI 5072 (CD). AA». TT: 59:06

Felix Mendelssohn worshipped the music of J.S. Bach; in 1829, a time lukewarm to Bach, 20-year-old Mendelssohn conducted the Saint Matthew Passion at the Berlin Singakademie and sparked a Bach revival which continues to this day. His own Preludes, Fugues, and Studies, written mostly between the ages of 17 and 27, are not only interesting reflections of Bach's profound influence on Mende's-sohn's life, but are also documented proof of Mendelssohn's flat-out musical genius.

Martin Jones is an outstanding pianist, with the ability to play these demanding pieces with wonderful Bachian detail and precision, at the same time tinting them with Mendelssohnian lyrical grace. His performance is first-rate and

deserves recognition. This analog-to-digital CD has only slight

amounts of the microphone distortion so common to piano recordings, and a mildly rolled-off sound. Overall, it is quite good. May I say euphonic?

If your collection is lacking in Mendelssohn,

this is an absolute must purchase. Recom-mended without reservation. The Variations and Fantasies are unmis-

takably Mendelssohnian in style, with an inherent serenity that runs throughout the

music. How difficult it must have been for Mendelssohn to gain recognition with Chopin, Liszt, Berlioz, and Schumann as his contem-poraries! Though often ignored, the Variations and

Fantasies are richly lyrical keyboard works in the Romantic style, with occasional influences

of Bach and Beethoven. The Fantasy in F Sharp Minor, Op.28, the major work of the group (written by Mendelssohn in his early 20s), clearly illustrates the composer's virtu-osity and inventive genius.

Martin Jones's playing, while sympathetic to the lyrical requirements of these pieces, at the same time maintains direction and con-tinuity. His style, though concise, is warm and lively without being too analytical.

Sonically, this CD is a clone of the Nim-bus/Mendelssohn Preludes and Fugues (very

good), and a worthy addition to anyone's piano-music collection. Nimbus should be complimented for their first-rate promotion of this great composer. —David B. Alfvin

MOZART: Piano Concertos No.9, K.271; No.I2, K.4I4

Fou Ts'ong, piano, conductor; Polish Chamber Orchestra

RCA 6357.2-RC (CD). Ledi Dudzik. Krzysztof Drab, prods. & cngs. DDD. TE 56:55

If this is an example of how the major labels can beat the high cost of recording US per-formers (see Von() No.6, p.5), more companies should hear RCA's effort: Take a Shanghai-born, London-based pianist, set him up with a skilled orchestra in someplace named

Bydgoszcz, Poland—forget the conductor— and let them have a couple of Mozart concer-tos. Then stand back and listen to the pure joy of making music.

That's what we have here, in the form of pianist-conductor Fou Ts'ong and the Polish Chamber Orchestra. All's not perfect, of course, but what recording is?


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Mozart's piano concertos brought the genre to equal stature with the symphony and made, perhaps, the strongest emotional statements of all his music Fou is exuberant in rendering the profusion of ideas in the first movements of these concertos. The same enthusiasm is felt

throughout this CD, though it brings along with it a few things that might better have been left behind.

Bold attacks and dynamics as well as robust legatos give both concertos a slight Romantic tinge. And while the second movements have

plenty of Mozartean andante poetry—espe-cially with Fou's appealing phrasing of rubato passages and nonharmonic tones—they don't really have the depth or tragic sense that, say,

a Lily Krauss or Rudolph Serkin gives them. In short, this is beautiful music, lacking only the final few touches of pathos in the inner movements and classical charm in the outer. As for the sound, if you're looking for depth

or ambience, look elsewhere Strings are a little harsh at times, and the Yamaha piano is a shade

brittle, though this seems to complement the

music. What you'll find is an in-your-lap perspective with well-defined orchestral sec-

tions and a relative freedom from most of the sins of close miking.

Quibbles aside, this recording is one you'll

love to hear many times over if you've ever ex perienced the joy of being part of the human race. —Robert Hesson

MOZART: String Quartets, K.593 a 614 Takacs Quartet: Denes Kromonzay, viola

Hungaroton 12881-2 (CD). DDD. TT 55:32

Here is a prime example of how the standards used in judging a recorded performance must

be more rigorous than those applied to a live one. Heard in the hall, both of these readings would seem more than adequate. But both have liabilities that make repeated hearings

wearisome. Sound is a key shortcoming: the harsh string tone grates, annoyingly audible breathing provides ludicrous counterpoint to the music, and the overall sonority is thick to

the point of suggesting a string orchestra. Whether this last flaw is rooted in the engi-

neering or in the tone of the Talcacs is hard to ascertain. Regardless, the end effect blurs

detail, muddying many significant part-ex-changes.

Interpretively, these accounts suggest weight

and gruffness at the expense of lightness and delicacy. With Mozart often excessively pret-

tified, such an approach is not without merit. But the outer movements of K.593 have none of the saucy impishness so well conveyed in the old Budapest recordings (still listed in Schwann). Then, too, both works suffer from less-than-perfect ensemble, many slurred passages robbing the music of its elan and crispness.

Far more of the Moz.artean matter is con-veyed by Josef Suk and the Smetana Quartet (on two Denon CDs). And those willing to in-

vest in a 3-CD (Philips) set can acquire all six of Mozart's glorious string quintets played with uncommon elegance and polish by a group featuring violinist Arthur Grumiaux. The most compelling of all the recordings of this reper-tory, however, was made in the early '70s by a Danish ensemble; currently availably only on LP (in a Valois set), its issue in the laser for-

mat would be most welcome. The Talcacs observes all exposition repeats, but given the limitations of this new release, the point is academic. —Mortimer H. Frank

SCHUBERT: Symphonies 4 a 5

Ivan Fischer, Budapest Festival Orchestra

Hungaroton HCD 12842 (CD). lstvan Berenyi. mg. & prod. DOD. IT: 60:20

Ivan Fischer, whose burgeoning career in England and on the continent has stamped

him as one of Europe's more promising con-ductors, here leads two performances that, if

occasionally flawed, have a good deal to recommend them. Throughout, textures are admirably clear without any excess of string tone covering other choirs; tempos, with one exception to be noted, are well-chosen; rhythms are firm, and melodies permitted to sing with a natural expansiveness that avoids even a hint of sounding labored. A few key

idiosyncrasies, however, prevent these readings from gaining an unqualified endorsement: Fischer paces the slow movement of Sym-phony 5 more like an adagio than the An-dante con moto that Schubert specified, and at such a funereal tempo the movement threatens to fall apart. The conductor also in-serts untoward breath-pauses before the Trios in each of the Minuets, a practice probably in-

tended to heighten contrast, but one that— given the contrast already built into the music— causes it to be neutralized. Finally, some may


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miss the nervous intensity implicit in the finale of No.4, a characteristic conveyed exceptional-ly well in a recent EMI CD release of the score recorded by Gunther Wand. Indeed, Wand,

whose superb cycle of Schubert symphonies was recently released on CD by EMI, is often more successful with both works, highlighting key details that Fischer skims over and taking greater interpretative risks, particularly in favoring a wider parameter of tempos.

Those who want Hungaroton's coupling of these two symphonies (the only one of its kind in the CD catalog) will nonetheless find much to admire in Fischer's generally tasteful, well-disciplined readings. Both were recorded in concert and are punctuated with occasional

coughs and applause at the close of each work. This can irritate on repeated hearings, but also

serves as a reminder that these are real perfor-mances, not pastiches of tape splices assembled in the studio. Fischer observes exposition

repeats in both first movements. Hungaroton's sound is well-focused and provides a fine in-stance of how musical string tone, free of even

a hint of harshness, can be achieved on a digitally recorded CD.—Mortimer H. Frank

SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphonies 6 & 9 Leonard Bernstein, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra

Deutsche Grammophon 419 771-2 (CD). Hans VA-ber, record-ing supervisor; Hanno Rinke, prod. DDD. rt 6524

Neither of these symphonies is what it was

supposed to have been. Shostakovich let on that the Sixth would be a paean to Lenin. Later, he would hint that the Ninth was to sing a

hymn to the victory of WWII. Though they surrounded the heroically proportioned Seventh and Eighth "war" symphonies, they turned out to be surprisingly light, brief—

some would say jocular—compositions. We see them today as enigmatic, ambiguous works that are neither what they were "supposed"

to be nor what they were taken to be upon their much-disparaged premieres. Leonard Bernstein seems to hold that they

are works of much greater depth and portent than anyone has heretofore recognized. He recorded both previously with the NYPO, and

there are no great surface differences between

those interpretations and these, with the VPO. But the later versions have an inexorable sense

of insight that the earlier ones lack. Perhaps we are hearing the voice of mature wisdom added to artistic talent.

Compare Bernstein's timing of the first movement of 6(22:29) with that of Yevgeny Mravinsky (14:57, Angel), who premiered the work in 1939, and you'll have a clue. M ravin-sky and others give the movement an astrin-

gent angularity, while Bernstein turns it into a whispered prayer. He has seen what others have not, and it transforms the music com-pletely. By comparison, Stokowski's attempt

to probe the depths only serves to drag the movement, gushing and sprawling, into the 19th Century.

In 9, which Shostakovich called "a merry lit-

tle piece," Bernstein reveals the cold, shaken stare of foreboding beneath the surface smiles.

The outgoing festivity is still there, but so is the uneasy peace—the gravity that humor tries to hide from itself. Frivolity and darkness do not take their assigned places, as they do in

Walter Weller's superb performance with L'Or-chestre de la Suisse Romande. Bernstein's reading is as pervasively enigmatic as the work itself. It does not try to put its finger on that which will not be pointed out. Is anything sacrificed for this depth of insight? Some of the wit and some of the fun, to be sure, but the compensations are generous.

The sound of the recording is decent, too.

It doesn't go much beyond that, though. It's up close with good width, not much depth. Tone colors are true. The odd thing is that the

notes say this is a live recording, but not so much as a sniffle is heard from the audience. What you will buy this recording for is to

hear the music of a conductor, too often maligned, who has survived to follow inner voices on a path toward enlightenment, under-standing, and stoic acceptance.

—Robert Hesson

STRAUSS: FM Heldenleben, Four Last Songs Felicity Lott, soprano; Neeme Jarvi, Scottish National Orchestra

Chandos 8518 (CD). Ralph Couzens, ens.; Brian Couzens, prod. DDD. rn 6643 An Alpine Symphony, 4 Songs

Felicity LORI. soprano; Neeme Jaervi, SNO Chandos 8557 (CD). Ralph Couzens. eng.; Brian Couzens, prod. DDD. TT: 6039

Neeme Jarvi and the Scottish National Or-chestra have opened their intended cycle of Richard Strauss's Symphonic Poems with perhaps the most exciting and impressive of

them all, Ein Heldenleben. This huge work, in one continuous movement, subdivides into


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six sections that portray the character of the Hero himself, his Adversaries, and his Compa-nion, and then outline his Deeds in Battle, his Works of Peace, and finally his Retirement from the World and Fulfillment of Life. It is a partly autobiographical work, with Strauss himself battling against his adversaries, the music critics, for recognition of his composi-

tions, or works of peace. His companion is his much-loved and capricious wife, Pauline de Ahna, the professional singer for whom many of his songs were written.

The Four Last Songs were written when Strauss was 85. They sum up a lifetime of glorious composition for the female voice, and seem to be a special tribute to his wife, with

whom he stands, hand in hand, at the sunset of life looking toward death in the final song,

Abendrot. The order of the songs chosen for this performance follows that favored by

Strauss and used in the work's first perfor-mance in London in 1950. Felicity Lott sings them with a radiance and purity of tone, soar-ing rapturously to lofty heights and descend-ing with ease to dwell in the more despondent depths; she handles these particularly difficult and characteristic phrases most successfully in Frubling.

The SNO provides the most beautifully warm and sensuous accompaniment in Beim Scblafengeben and 1m Abendrot, but Sep-tember, with its raindrop accompaniment

behind the less immaculately intoned voice here, is disappointingly imprecise by com-parison. However, this criticism can rarely be

leveled against the orchestra in Eli, Heiden-leben. Jarvi's is a wonderfully expansive view

of this magnificent work, and the SNO opens out to give everything they've got for its full 46 minutes. Perhaps the greatest compliment

that could be paid them is that the music seems to play itself, and bears all the excite-ment and spontaneity of a live performance. The Hero's soaring theme is virile and confi-

dent, while his adversaries appear more cowardly than usual. They chatter and com-plain among themselves, rather than face the Hero head-on. The characterization of Pauline is, like the Hero's, unafraid to show itself in its

true light. Edwin Paling, the solo violin here, grasps the very essence of her character: volatile and unpredictable in her changes of mood; sometimes seductively alluring, at

others unreasonably fractious. The Battle

scene is marvelously wrought too, and with off-stage trumpets calling the Hero into action,

there unfolds an orchestral showcase as testing to the performers as to the recording engineers. Considering the warmth and lengthy

reverberation of the Caird Hall acoustic, there is incredible inner textural clarity, even in the most complex sections of the score. Com-plementing Jarvi's interpretation is an equally expansive width and depth to the soundstage,

and if there is a slightly raucous edge to the sound it is entirely in keeping here. In the

more peaceful, final two scenes of the work,

the richness of instrumental timbres and the wonderful commitment of the SNO put to rest any minor doubts over recording quality With

the helpful accessing of the six sections (also

banded on the LP) as an added bonus, this first issue is highly recommended. The Alpine Symphony, coupled with four

separate orchestral songs, has, arguably, a pleasanter recorded sound. The orchestra is slightly more distant and the harsh edge is

gone, but it is important to find the optimum volume setting. Even with this, sections of greatest dynamic complexity fail to flower as naturally and fully as they should, inhibiting

the kind of immediacy to be found on the Heldenleben recording. Jarvi's reading is, again, so sensitively honed that this perfor-mance alone should sell the disc. If the in-dividual parts are not always finely wrought, the sum of those parts is totally captivating. The atmosphere he creates at the opening is

gripping—one waits on the mountain at night, hardly daring to draw breath, as slowly the sun starts to rise, eventually bursting forth with

scintillating orchestral color. And so begins a description of 21 events within a day on the

mountain, all individually accessible on CD. There is some beautiful oboe playing here, depicting the Alpine sprite at the waterfall and

the first drops of rain that herald the tumul-tuous storm. In a score usually trivialized in performance by the nature of its program, Jarvi digs deep to discover the hidden treasures within.

Of the orchestral songs coupled with this symphonic poem, the greatest is the famous Morgen!. It receives an impelling performance, from the opening notes of the orchestral prelude to Felicity Lott's beautiful floating phrases. By contrast, Das Bacblein is reminis-cent of Humperdinck's Hansel und Gretel in


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its freshness and innocence. Freundlicbe Vi-

sion and Meinem Kinde open this sequence with equally compelling empathy and com-mitment from soloist and orchestra alike With

such a fine beginning to this cycle, one won-ders what other cards Jarvi has up his sleeve for the next issue of Also Sprach Zarathustra, with Don Juan and yet four more songs.

— Barbara Jahn

VIVALDI: The Four Seasons, Concerto in C

Michala Petri, recorder; George Malcolm. harpsichord, Guildhall String Ensemble

RCA RD 86656 (CD). Tony Faulkner. mg. Ralph Mace, prod DDD. TT: 47:54

If you can first come to terms with the fact that

this Four Seasons is going to sound like no other, then you should have little difficulty in enjoying its freshness and spontaneity, and Michala Petri's breathtaking virtuosity on the recorder. Here she plays the solo, usually taken by the violin, on sopranino, descant, or treble

recorder, depending on which is tonally most suitable. These are her own arrangements and they work remarkably well, though you may have to steel yourself against marveling at her

immaculate technique rather than hearing the music in its own right.

Her recorders seem to have had no balance

problems with the string body, the sopranino in particular piercing through the textures with arresting clarity. And how effective it all is: the

spiky sounds of Winter and the lively, spirited joys of Spring seem to work especially well,

but maybe it is the infectious enthusiasm and dexterity with which not only Michala Petri but also the youthful Guildhall String Ensem-

ble and George Malcolm play that has ensured this success. I was impressed by the excellent articulation and coordination of the conductor-less strings, alert and quick to respond to their soloist's requirements and obviously well-rehearsed in grading every shade of dynamic color.

Equally praiseworthy is the way they sup-

press their natural exuberance in the Concerto in C, here a virtuosic showpiece for the sopranino recorder. Michala is stunning in her technical fluency in the outer movements, while the slow movement displays her beautifully consistent and pure tone, shot through with a totally captivating intensity of emotion. Altogether an exciting first issue for RCA. —Barbara Jahn

CLASSICAL COLLECTIONS

BACH: Prelude in C (V/1C Bk I); Trio Sonata in C (BWV 1037); Concerto in d (BWV 1043) VIVALDI: Sinfonia in C (RV 116); Trio Sonata in g (RV 73); Concerto in Eb (RV SIS) .Iaap Schroder, Stanley Ritchie, Linda Quan, violins; Helicon Ensemble. Albert Fuller, dir.

Reference Recordings RR-23CD (CD). Keith,Johnson, prod. DDD. TT: 56:45

Comparisons (BWV 1043): Sundae, Wilcox, Eng. Concert, Pinnock (DG Arch 410-646-1); Perlman, Zukerman: ECO, Barenboim (EMI AM-34726)

There have been a number of criticisms leveled at the authentic movement in Baroque perfor-mance. While I am certainly an advocate of that movement, I must admit that some of the objections are valid. Unfortunately, this record-ing may serve to reinforce some of the more strident complaints, particularly in the area of string tone.

This is not to say that the playing here is bad by any means. Technique is very fine, and direction is firm; however, the extremely small forces employed (2 First Violins; 2 Seconds, 1 Viola, 1 Cello, 1 Violone—and that at max-

imum)—surely smaller than the composers had in mind—lead not only to clarity of line, which is desirable, but to a lack of smoothness, and even the "acid" tone of which critics com-plain. There is also, which seems to me more serious, a lack of the last degree of involve-

ment with the music, something absolutely necessary in such intimate performances. Compare, for example, the largo of the Bach Concerto with Pinnock's version. Both are on period instruments, and Helicon actually plays more slowly (7:02 as opposed to 6:32), but Standage and Wilcox produce what sounds

like a largo (Bach actually says ma non tanto, "but not too slowly"); Ritchie and Quan do not. I miss as well the dialogue between the two

violins, which ought to be continually in evidence here, but only shows up sporadically.

If you are unsure of what I mean, listen to

Perlman and Zukerman. It is true, they have some wobble in their tone (which I now find

objectionable in Baroque playing), but the

authentic movement cannot yet boast of vir-tuosity to equal theirs. (Could this have some-thing to do with relative salaries?) They, along

with Barenboim, create a musical experience of a special order, not to be quantified with labels of authenticity or inauthenticity. The sublime is always authentic.

All this said, I am sure many of you simply


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want to know what a Professor Johnson all digital recording sounds like. My first impres-sion was of dryness; I quickly revised this to

"somewhat dry, but with incredible detail" (alas, this sounds like Accu -Weather). This recording makes every other violin disc (black or silver) I own sound muddy and veiled, as though a transistor preamp were replaced by a tube unit. I hope this will serve to silence those who believe digital incapable of such a detailed presentation: I would love to hear the companion "pure analog" recording.

There are two problems with the sound, however. The first is a too-forward placement of the harpsichord; it sounds lovely (ravishing

in the Prelude), but it is only supposed to be part of the continuo. The second is the

presence of some hiss (microphones?) and a rumble, especially evident between move-

ments of the Bach Concerto (air condition-ers?). This bothers me somewhat; you will

have to make up your own mind about it. To conclude: if you want authentic perfor-

mances of Bach and Vivaldi, I suggest you go elsewhere, perhaps to Pinnock for the former,

and Monica Huggett and the London Vivaldi Orchestra (ASV GAU 105-R) for the latter. If you want the Bach Concerto as it may never be heard again, go for Perlman and Zukerman. Now if only Keith Johnson could get artists like those to record! —Leslie S. Berkley

THE MOSCOW SESSIONS

Barber: First Essay for Orchestra; Copland: Appalachian

Spring; Gershwin: Lullaby (for string quartet); Glazunov: ‘Ulse de Concert in D; Glinka: Russian and ludmilla Over-ture: Griffes: The White Peacock; Ives: The Unanswered Question; Mussorgsky: Kboransbcbina Prelude; Piston:

The Incredible Flutist (ballet suite); Shostakovich: Symphony I. Festive Overture; Tchaikovsky: Symphony 5 Lawrence Leighton Smith, Dmitri Kitayenko, Moscow Philhar-monic Orchestra

Sheffield Lab CD-I000 (3 CDs); TLP-1000 (3 LPs). CDs DDD. LPs AAA. TT: 180:40

The ecumenical collaboration between Shef-field Lab, the Moscow Philharmonic Orch-estra, conductors Lawrence Leighton Smith and Dmitri Kitayenko, an imposing gaggle of businessmen and bureaucrats, and partial

sponsorship by The Absolute Sound's Fund for Recorded Music, if somewhat short of epoch-making, is, nonetheless, a positive example of

free enterprise and socialism bedding down together, liberally (pardon the expression) lubricated with glasnost. Art, we are told, is universal. It transcends philosophical, racial,

political, and religious differences of opinion. Yet, despite the implied altruism of this inter-national cooperative effort, the actual genesis of the project was essentially pragmatic, funda-mentally bottom line. In Stereophile's April/

May 1987 issue (Vol.10 No.3), Sheffield Lab's Lincoln Mayorga and Doug Sax, in con-versation with J. Gordon Holt, disclosed that the soaring cost of recording American orch-estras virtually forced the enterprising duo to seek cheaper, if not necessarily greener, pastures. Whatever the motivation, a recording

of an American conductor directing a Soviet orchestra in Russian music, juxtaposed with

a Soviet maestro interpreting Copland, Gersh-win, Barber, etc., sounds promising and, we are told, is a first.

The Moscow Philharmonic is, of course, no

stranger to US record collectors. Under the baton of Kiril Kondrashin (among others), their Melodiya recordings, mainly released by Angel here (and now Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab), made a great contribution to Shostakovich en-thusiasts (of which I am one) with an almost complete discography of the 15 symphonies. By most accepted musical standards, the Moscow band is a fine ensemble on a par with

the acclaimed Leningrad Philharmonic, but ranking, perhaps, lower than the Ministry of Culture Symphony. As with all Russian orch-

estras, the perceptive listener may hear sub-tle differences of instrumental tone. Lawrence Leighton Smith points out in his notes that Rus-sian horns play with a marked vibrato (par-ticularly noticeable in the Tchaikovsky), their

oboes have a darker sound, and, as their cellos' end-pins are both longer and angled unusually

by American standards, the sound projection strikes the US listener's ear rather differently. 1 would add that Russian brass and wood-winds emit a somewhat coarser, earthier sound that invariably appears less studied and

more spontaneous than that of their US counterparts. The strings, too, are weightier, less silky, and more plangent. Under the leadership of both Smith and Kitayenko (the

orchestra's music director), homogeneity and balance are wholly admirable, and the rank-

and-file musicians appear to be thoroughly in-

volved emotionally with their duties. Of course, these recording sessions were embossed with an extraordinary sense of occasion which

must have stimulated all concerned.

Lawrence Leighton Smith, presently music


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director of the Louisville Orchestra and the Music Academy of the West, Santa Barbara, California, is an extremely accomplished musi-cian whose talents merit far greater recogni-tion via both the concert hall and the record-ing studio. A musician's musician, Smith is one of a coterie of gifted American conductors (Ins Angeles's Daniel Lewis is another who

comes to mind) who frequently languish in the boonies making beautiful music, while lesser mortals overflowing with charisma and/or ex-pensive PR guidance conduct major orchestras in minor recordings.

The Moscow Philharmonic is probably capable of playing Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Mussorgsky, et Russian al, in their sleep. However, Smith's overview of the 18-year-old Shostakovich's first symphony, a student com-position, is, in its own way, as impressive as Kondrashin's despite different emphases. After a jaunty, appropriately light-hearted opening Allegretto which captures the requisite quiz-

zical buoyancy and sets the stage for things to come, he settles down to a more expansive, thoughtful reading. Shostakovich's omnipres-ent wit is graciously underlined, yet heavy

doses of "subtle" effects are not allowed to overpower and smother compulsive piquancy. Transitions of tempi variations and mood are allowed to occur naturally, leading to a mov-ing, integrated, synergistic totality. I am less enthusiastic about the performance

of the Tchaikovsky Fifth. If you like your Tchaikovsky with a surfeit of Sturm und Drang, this version may please you. Although Smith succeeds in controlling the orchestra's seem-ingly natural exuberance—possibly over-stimulated by that sense of occasion—for the Shostakovich, he appears to be waging a losing battle in the Tchaikovsky. In the aforementioned JGH article, Doug Sax was quoted as saying that this Fifth was "positively stunning, that this is the most impassioned, moving perfor-mance of this work you've ever heard." Well, I find it stunning, but not in the same sense. 1 have heard many interpretations far less em-phatic, far less overwrought, yet infinitely more persuasively moving. Tchaikovsky created a passionate score; the intensity of emotion is all there in the notation. The last thing it needs is such overemphasis and underlining. With apologies to Mr. Sax, whose opinion could be nonobjective, if I wish to be stunned I'll climb in the ring with Mike 'Tyson.

I am impressed by Smith's reading of the Glinka and Shostakovich overtures. Similarly, the Kbovansbchina by Mussorgsky, played with idiomatic elan, whetted my appetite for more of this melodious opera from these per-formers. Having long championed the cause of Alexander Glazunov, whose estimable symphonies are inexplicably ignored in this country—although they have begun to appear in recordings on such European labels as

Olympia, Orfeo, and Chandos—I am thankful for small mercies, even for the Concert Waltz No.!, a pleasant but distinctly minor piece. This Slavic equivalent of a Strauss waltz is liltingly played with terpsichorean elegance.

For reasons solely musical, I am distinctly disenchanted by Kitayenko's plodding attempts to communicate the American musical idiom. True, he was apparently unfamiliar with this repertoire prior to having been given the scores by the Sheffield Lab people. One assumes from his obvious lack of sympathy

with these pieces that he was not provided with records or tapes to familiarize himself with, at least, a requisite musical milieu. He sounds remarkably ill-prepared. Copland's evocative Appalachian Spring, for example, has had an international concert-hall life for

years and exists in several helpful recordings. In his notes, Smith talks about hearing his Soviet colleague rehearsing and playing with what he describes as "a Russian accent." Methinks that maestro Smith is being ultra-

tactful. Kitayenko's halting phrasing is four-square, his accentuation is sometimes out of whack, the playing, so boisterous in the Tchaikovsky, is tentative, and the artistic com-munication is at a low and distinctly un-American level.

Walter Piston's The Incredible Flutist, a charming ballet score seldom programmed these days, emerges a trifle more successfully

but hardly offers competition to the excellent Louisville Orchestra recording with Jorge Mester conducting, or Howard Hanson's Mer-cury version. I'm afraid that I cannot honestly be more enthusiastic about Kitayenko's other American excursions. As Sheffield Lab is the champion of direct-

to-disc, it may surprise some fans that they decided to record digitally for CD release, and via two-track analog for LP. Obviously, mar-ketplace dictates were largely responsible for this decision. As my realm of analysis and


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opinion is music, I don't intend to dip even my little toe in the waters of contention that sur-round the analog vs digital debate. In several decades of reviewing concerts and recordings, I still have not heard any music reproduction

to completely capture the sound quality of a good seat in a fine, audience-filled concert hall. Methinks I never will. In sum, for me, a recording is to a live performance what a mo-tion picture is to a play: they are similar but dif-ferent art forms offering similar yet disparate

aesthetic experiences. That, succinctly, is my audio credo. In

general, I am impressed with Sheffield Lab's engineering; they appear to have chosen music rather than audio impressionism as their end-product. Their digitally engineered CDs are notable for pristine clarity, expressive dynamic range, and exciting transients. As with many of their ilk, I am conscious of some sterility in the actual musical quality of the sound, but this seems to be endemic to a great deal of digital engineering. This also manifests as coolness in the sound character. Conversely, the analog LPs offer amiable warmth, rather

less impressionable transients, and more natural-sounding string reproduction. I do not have keen preference for one over the other, but do confess to playing the CDs more often than the LPs. This, I admit, is probably due more to laziness and the CDs' undoubted con-venience. Both recording methods serve their musical content admirably . —Bernard Soil

ROCK, ETC.

THE BEATLES Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band EMI/Parlophone CDP 7 46442 2 (CD). Geoff Emerick. ant.; George Martin. prod. ADD. TE 39:52 Magical Mystery Tour EMI/Parlophone CDP 7 48062 2 (CD). Big George Martin,

prod. ADD. IT: 36:52 The Beatles (The Willie Album)

EMI/Parlophone CDP 7 46443,46444 2(2 CDs). George Mar-

tin, prod. ADD. IT: 9340 Abbey Road EMllParlophone COP 7 46446 2 (CD). Geoff Emerick,

Philip McDonald, engs.: George Martin, mod. ADD. TE 4726

Once again it's time to splash more printer's ink on the legend of the Beatles. If you haven't

already read too many interviews with George Martin, or reviews of the Beatles CD reissues,

press on. The four albums reviewed here, the most

important releases of the Beatles' later work, vary wildly in the qualities of their transfers

to CD. But sonics aside for a moment, what even the worst of these reissues unequivocally

reveals is the astonishing power, punchy sound, sparse playing, unerring rhythm, and effortless musicality of Paul McCartney's bass. I've always had a healthy respect for McCart-

ney's playing, but so much more is revealed here that it calls for a general reassessment. To a lesser degree, Ringo's oft—and wrongly— maligned drumming also sounds much better here (try listening to just the drums on

"Polythene Pam").. . but I'm getting ahead of

myself. Sgt. Pepper, the musical media event and

pop-culture watershed non pareil, was the

centerpiece of this reissue series and boasts the packaging to prove it: a thick booklet including notes on the sessions, individual notes for each song, previously unpublished photos from the cover sessions, rejected song sequences, essays, a sample of the original inner sleeve design, and, on the side of the CD longbox,

the famous cut-outs. It's all quite wonderful, but I couldn't help wishing that EMI had done the same for all the reissues—they certainly wouldn't have had to worry about covering costs. And, in case anyone is still fearful, rest assured: these releases are all in stereo. I always forget what a hard rocker Sgt. Pep-

per is; its associations of chewy-centered, received spirituality always make me think of

incense and peppermints, but right from the first riff, the playing is tough. This quality is brought to the fore on CD, with Paul's solid

bass so much stronger, fuller, and insistent. The sound is quite good throughout, with a bit more high-frequency air than the LP. The drily recorded string quartet on "She's Leav-ing Home" has more bite, the electronics at the end of "Mr. Kite" are much more audible as separate sounds, Ringo's drums come to life on "Rita," and Paul's vocal on "When I'm 64" sounds as if he suddenly decided to face the microphone after 20 years of turning his back to it. The bass drum on "Day in the Life," which

some long-ago rock critic likened to "a can-

nonball dropped from 30 feet into a 300-1b. marshmallow," is faithfully rendered; the same song's maracas are mixed farther front; the or-chestral crescendo sounds much better here, individual instruments easily discerned; and reinstated are what the rest of the world has heard for 20 years but is new to the US—the


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final seconds of tape-splice screwing around that were in the lead-out grooves of all but the US edition of this album.

All in all, the CD makes Sgt. Pepper sound much more as if played by a rock band, rather

than a masterful assemblage of tracks. A de-cent, respectful job of remastering, with great respect for the original. Magical Mystery Tour was always one of the

least-played of my Beatles albums; not because I disliked the music, but because the recorded sound was so god-awful. Screaming high fre-

quencies, nonexistent bass, and extreme harsh-ness added up to aching ears and few play-ings. This is in large part due to the kind of sound the Beatles were looking for during that time; certainly the four new songs on Yellow Submarine—particularly George Harrison's— were top-heavy enough in HF, and The Beatles

(see below) had a strained, stretched-thin, no-frills sound. But much of it was simply bad engineering and mastering, as the MMT CD so clearly reveals.

The highs are still there, but they don't scream, and the CD separates and organizes them in ways that keep them from fighting each other. Here's a rare case in which the CD is several orders of magnitude less harsh than the LP—witness the title song, "Fool on the Hill," and the right-channel guitar in "Flying." There are many other pleasures: the tam-

bourine in the outchorus of "Blue Jay Way" redefines palpable presence (I looked over my

shoulder at its entrance, thinking someone— or something—was gainin' on me); handclaps I hadn't heard before in "Hello Goodbye"; and the British version of "Walrus," which has a

few extra bars of the opening cello motif (although the cellos don't come through as well as on the LP at the first "I'm cryin'"). Throughout the CD, Ringo's drums have a

little less punch, but sound—as does every-thing else—considerably less flimsy than on the LP. The celli and brass come through with deep-focus clarity, and George Martin's arrangements seem mixed a little farther for-ward. It works. "Penny Lane" is mellower, warmer on CD, with a much-clarified bass line, and there is a conga drum in the trumpet bridge that I hadn't heard before. Listen carefully to Paul's bass in "Baby You're A Rich

Man," and what sounds like Yoko singing with John on "Nothing that doesn't show." The remastering of Sgt. Pepper may have

been respectful, but this is inspired; for the first time, the sound of Magical Mystçry Tour is ac-tually a pleasure to hear.

The Beatles is the least changed of these four releases, though there are a few. The as-tringent, almost painful high frequencies are carried over intact to the CDs; instrumental placement is not quite as specific as on LP. Most of my criticism, however, is of the editing: many previously segued songs are now discrete units on the silver disc, which plays hell with the between-song rhythm and

flow the Beatles labored so mightily to achieve.

This is particularly annoying in such cases as "Martha My Dear," the descending close of which is perfectly mirrored by the ascending

intro of "I'm So Tired"; the cutting out of link-ing ambience on the CD destroys the effect. This sort of thing happens throughout the album.

But there are improvements as well: the brass arrangement on "Martha" is fully in-

tegrated into the mix, no longer a tinny little track at the extreme right channel; an alter-native lead-guitar solo can be heard faintly in

the left channel of "Yer Blues," just before John's off-mike vocal; the organ part in verse 2 of "Sexy Sadie" was new to me; the "Savoy Truffle" sax chart has even more bite; and the false fade in "Helter Skelter" does not, it turns out, fade to total silence before fading back in. In "Cry Baby Cry," when John sings "with

voices out of nowhere put on specially by the children for a lark," the LP's left-channel vocal drops ow, making the last six words come from the extreme right channel. This is "cor-rected" in the CD, keeping the vocal dead-

center throughout. Evidently this was a glitch that someone always wanted to repair; how-

ever, / always assumed it to be deliberate, and, late-'60s Beatles listening sessions being what they were, had developed all sorts of

reasons why it should be so, the most obvious being an attempt to approximate a "voice out of nowhere" by electronic means (something for which the Beatles were notorious). Anyway, I miss it.

Paul's bass playing reached its peak here, stuttering on "Everybody's Got Something to Hide ...", offering all sorts of treats on "Birth-day," "Helter Skelter," "Revolution 1," "Honey Pie," and "Savoy Truffle," and sounding positively frightening in drive and intensity on "Yer Blues."


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In balance, a tough call, the CD ending up with a recommendation only slightly higher than the LP's; but most will want both. When I first heard of the Beatles CD

reissues, 1 immediately thought of MMT and

Abbey Road as the albums that would most benefit from transfer: the former because its LP predecessor was so bad, the latter because it was the most sophisticated recording.

Well, MMT exceeded my highest expecta-tions, but Abbey Road is a great disappoint-

ment. The sound is fuzzy and furry through-

out, often sounding like a pastry paddle whumping through great mounds of dough. All editing, punching-in, and multi-tracking are much more audible on CD, to the music's detriment. Also, there seems to be more time

between songs, and/or CD silence makes non-ambient dead air between tracks even more glaringly evident, making the album sound like a mere bag of songs rather than a unified whole.

The strings in "Something" are muddy, sounding like the Mellotron they most defin-itely are not, and the gothic organ entrance

halfway through the closing vamp of "She's So Heavy" is barely discernible. There's a soft glaze over the entire album, as if it were preserved in amber epoxy. The LP tended toward this effect, but the CD crystallizes it. There are a few advantages—Paul's fingers

on bass strings in "Come Together," the much clearer piano vamping in "Oh Darling," and the fresher choirs in "Maxwell's Silver Ham-mer," "Because," and "Sun King"—but on the whole, the LP delivers a much richer sonic experience.

Now the mop-up starts. What we need is a comprehensive, chronological, well CD or two of all the Beatles material that has not made it onto this series: British singles, B-

sides, most of what's on Hey Jude, judicious gleanings from the US and UK editions of Rarities, and, who knows? mebbe even some of that stuff that still, after all these years, re-

mains in the EMI vaults. On the whole, the series has been good; except for the mono flap at the beginning, and the sorry Abbey Road at

the end, EMI, George Martin & Co. have done a decent job. Not to mention those four other guys. Now let's finish it.—Richard Lehnert

FIRESIGN THEATRE: Don't Crush nut Dwarf. ¡land Me The Pliers

The Firesign Theatre: Philip Austin, Peter Bergman, Philip Proctor, David Ossman

Mobile Fidelity MFCD 880 (CD). Bill Driml, mg.; Bill Driml, Firesign, prods. AAD. TT: 46:24

Back in the late '60s and early '70s, when the sight of a VW Bug or van on the horizon almost guaranteed the hapless hitcher a ride, I did most of my traveling by thumb. I can remember spending literally hours reciting en-tire Firesign Theatre scripts with the total strangers who had just picked me up, never ut-tering a "straight" remark in hours of non-stop

talk. From the first "Shoes for Industry, com-padre," to the last "I see you are a sailor the litany would go on and on. Of the many argots and ephemeral shared mythologies of that now-mythic time, the Firesign Theatre

provided one of the richest, funniest, and most resonant.

Reading Mobile Fidelity's press release on this CD, I was impressed yet again by the fact that, in 20 years, I have never read anything

by a journalist that even comes close to describing what the Firesign Theatre has been doing in that time. I'm afraid I can't do much better myself. Perhaps their own self-defini-tion, from the liner notes of the very obscure Just Folks. . . A Firesign Chat, is most succinct: "of or relating to the humor of the decline of Western Civilization."

It should be clear, then, that to me, there was

always a lot more to this group than the usual "let's get stoned and listen to Firesign Theatre!" would suggest, though even that announce-ment was invariably followed by a bunch of scruffy young people sitting in silence, actually listening to the record with great concentration. Sort of unthinkable now, isn't it?

Dwarf, Firesign's best-selling of over 23 releases, and their first full- (ie, album-) length LP, was first released in the summer of 1970 by CBS. I've worn out three copies in that time, so Mobile Fidelity's CD was a welcome arrival. Nor did the little disc wear out its welcome: the sound is simply gorgeous. Mobile Fidelity has done a magical job with the master tapes, which were mighty sophisticated to begin with. No one has produced audio drama of

higher or more sophisticated production values than Firesign, and it's a joy to discover that there was a whole lot more in those master tapes than any of us ever heard.

The greater depth-of-field here makes audi-ble many second- and third-level background


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conversations, musical cues, sound effects, and monologues that were formerly just part of a

vague background ambience. Now they have true dramatic content, and can be followed much farther, even as the foreground material takes over. This makes the overlapping and

editing even more seamless, the connections between the surreally segued scenes even more powerful. Edits are as good, or better, than the LP throughout.

Tape hiss is nonexistent. The recording has all the advantages of analog and digital, and

the disadvantages of neither. An added treat are Phil Austin's remarkable liner notes, in which is revealed, for the cognoscenti, that,

yes, The Firesign Theatre was just as wise and smart as we thought they were back in the dope-cured '60s. It's good to know it wasn't just the dynamite hash.

Highly recommended for fans. For those who've never heard this group, even more highly recommended—you've got quite a treat coming. —Richard Lchnert

JOEJACKSON: Will Poorer Joe Jackson (composer, arranger, piano), orchestra

Mobile Fidelity UDCD 503 (CD). (Reissue of A&M CD-3908). Paul Goodman and Michael Frondelli, engs.; Joe Jackson, prod. ODD (AAD on Syntpbony?). TT, 4205

Sometimes popular musicians are their own worst enemies. It's bad enough that there are so many "serious" music critics who refuse to take Pop seriously. You can read their musty pronouncements in various audio journals. Such criticism, though, is usually lightweight.

The real danger comes from those pop musi-dans who achieve, and become acknowledged for, serious accomplishment in their work. Too often they wind up taking themselves more seriously than they do their art, and pur-sue legitimacy as defined by inappropriate establishment criteria. Joe Jackson is a talented, sometimes inspired

musician. There was a time—about five years ago—when few could equal him in writing ar-ticulate and soul-piercing lyrics. "Is She Really

Going Out With Him," from Jackson's first (1979) album Look Sharp, "Pretty Boys," from

1980's Beat Crazy, and "Breaking Us in Two," from 1982's Night and Day, are about as good as pop songs get: adult-romantic lyrics; in-

strumentation and arrangement appropriate in scale and wit; and production full of blood

and vigor. Jackson offered no apologies for the

commercialism of his product, instead mak-

ing the most of the pop medium: a big sound, sometimes joyous, sometimes Inelancholy, always alert and emphatic.

Will Power is completely different from these earlier albums, and wrongheaded in ex-tending the tendency of self-importance Jackson began in 1984's Body and Soul. In Body and Soul, Jackson overlayed splashy, pseudo-jazz instrumentals (near-parodies of Gil Evans orchestrations) with embarrassingly vapid lyrics. By 1987 he has made enough money to go symphonic and hire a 60-piece

orchestra, forces deployed in playing some of the most inutile, perfectly awful music I've heard in years. "Solitude," the album's second cut, is Jackson's attempt at bad Debussy. Though scored for full orchestra, the record-

ing is dominated by outsized flutes, a bad rendering of a bad arrangement. The major work, "Symphony in One Movement," is so characterless that it scarcely qualifies as mediocre film scoring. This is structureless mush-music; it can't even be called episodic, and is full of jive, cliched sectional licks. It ex-ists solely to exploit all of the hackneyed

audiophile expectations (why else would Mobile Fidelity remaster it?). It goes low and it goes high, solo instruments are merciless-

ly spotlighted, the listener is led through ex-

tremes of volume; the result is physically pain-ful (my dog left the room while Symphony was playing). The MFSL flack sheet trumpets this

as a significant work, but Will Power, and specifically this cut, deserve no higher regard than such other audiophile excesses as the

Telarc 1812, or Dave Grusin records from the bad old days of audio. Only one piece on Will Power is remotely

like what I've come to expect from Jackson in thematic development and depth of feeling. "Nocturne" is a pretty piece for solo piano, played by Jackson, the only piece on the record where he appears as performer rather than technician. But "Solitude" lacks words,

and words have always been the most original commodity to come out of Jackson's best records. The biggest problem with Will Power is that

it blatantly asserts its significance, and an artist cannot simply try to be significant. Not only doesn't it work; it also vitiates the art. What's

wrong with playing good rock'n'roll, anyway? That's what Jackson does best. Most good art,


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whether nxk'n'roll or not, does carry a discern-ible connection to popular culture. One ig-nores this connection at great peril. Jackson's

eschewing of his rock roots recalls the reports that Mark Twain resented his own renown as a teller of humorous stories. I'm also reminded of the aging Leonard Bernstein,

who, in his desire to legitimize his popular masterpiece West Side Story, re-recorded it

with an international operatic cast (DG 415 253-2), the result proving far more refined and immeasurably less alive than the earlier stage versions (eg, Columbia JS -32603). As to sound: this is literally a gold-plated CD,

one of Mobile Fidelity's Ultradisc series. The technical information included with the disc posits that the gold coating is far less prone to

oxidation, and therefore pitting and loss of digits, than the standard aluminum surface, so it trips a CD player's error-correction circuitry less often. I didn't have on hand a bit-error tester, but can report that this disc presents a big, clean sound. Dynamic range is impressive even for a CD (this even though I seem to

detect tape hiss on Symphony; perhaps this cut was recorded in analog). In fact, it's quite possible that my as-yet-unmodified CD player

cannot do it justice. I'm sure that my objec-tions to Will Power—sonic and aesthetic— are a byproduct of the musical material and

original recording, not the playback medium. It's not MFSL's fault that there is no ambience around the orchestral instruments, and that it's blatantly obvious that certain instruments were

recorded in a closet, then mixed in later. Those failings existed from the time of recording. I'm afraid that, rather than gilding the lily, Mobile Fidelity has here gold-plated a turkey.

—Kevin Conklin

BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN: Thinnel of love Columbia CK 40999. Bruce Springsteen. Jon 12ndau. Chuck Plotkin, prods. DDD. TT: 46,25 JOHN COUGAR MELLENCAMP: The Lonesome jubilee Mercury 832 465-1 Q-I. John Mellencamp. Don Gellman, prods. AAD. 17: 3938

Both of these albums represent "mid-life" crises of sorts for these two somewhat similar

rock stars. Springsteen, the more successful of the two, is coming off his incredibly successful

Born in the USA, his last studio album, and a multi-record live set that saw sales fall as quick-

ly as they had risen. This new album was heralded as a "smaller"-scaled album, in the

same vein as Nebraska, and not as monumen-tal an effort as Born in the USA. I am not the biggest Springsteen fan in the world, so 1 can readily agree.

Tunnel of Love represents Springsteen's latest works, now that he's married, Live Aid

behind him, and he's seemingly getting used to the fruits of his labors. The album opens with "Ain't Got You":

I got a pound of caviar sitting borne on ice /got a fancy foreign car that rides like para-dise ligota hundred pretty women knockin' down my door /And folks wanna kiss me I ain't even seen before / I been around the world and all across the seven seas / Been paid a king's ransom for doin' what comes

naturally /But I'm still the biggest fool honey

this world ever knew /Cause the only thing lain 't got baby l ain't got you. (c)1987 Bruce Springsteen (ASCAP)

It's starting to sound like a lot of the struggle is gone, reflecting changes in a man who no longer needs to fret over what he used to

worry about in suburban New Jersey; what youth has always worried about: a lousy job, women, cars, and money. The music says there are still worries, but I've made it . . . and I see the world a little differently now.

Don't get the impression that this album is complacent MOR or elevator music. It's a good record, the 12 songs are very well produced

and well presented, but they lack the intensity that previous outings have conveyed.

Die-hard Springsteen fans will probably disagree, but a year or two from now I wonder

how many will really want to listen to this album.

Success-wise, John Mellencamp is no slouch either. From rural America, he sees the country from the point of view of a small-town Indiana

boy. Sure, jobs, women, cars, and money are important there, too—but the problems that face American farmers have left an indelible marten that part of the world, and an indeli-ble mark on Mellencamp's music. Mellencamp dropped the "Cougar" show-

biz pseudonym a few years ago. He's been mar-ried a little longer than Springsteen (he's even written a song about his wife; Bruce hasn't).

He organized Farm Aids 1 and 2 and now, with children entering his life, his world seems to be settling down. It's reflected in his music. The album opens with the hit "Paper in Fire":

There is a good life /Right across this green


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field /And each generation / Stares at it from afar /But we keep no check /On our appetites /So our green fields turn to brown /Just like paper in fire (c)1987 Riva Music, Inc. (ASCAP)

The Lonesome Jubilee wonderfully reflects Middle America in the eyes of a rock'n'roll

musician. From "Paper in Fire" to "Hard Times For An Honest Man" and "Hotdogs And Ham-burgers," Mellencamp shows that he's fast becoming the populist voice of rock.

Technically, the Springsteen album is digital-ly recorded and does sound better on CD. On the other hand, Mellencamp's album is analog, and sounds a bit more realistic on LP (cheaper too!). Both albums are worth auditioning, but if I were pressed to choose just one, it would be The Lonesome Jubilee. It will be interesting to see what's next from both of them.

—Gary S. Krakow

ROBBIE ROBERTSON: Robbie Robertson

Oaten OHS 24160. Daniel Limns and Robbie Robertson, prods. ADD. TI 44:59

Robbie Robertson was the lead guitarist for The Band. He also wrote or co-wrote most of their songs. Like many other rock groups, when the leader decided he had had enough, The Band ceased to exist. That happens a lot these days—The Stones, The Who, etc.

But like fellow musicians in the other

groups, the remaining members of The Band did not want their careers ending when the "lead guy" left . . . they hadn't had enough. They continued touring with other bands and their own pick-up groups. One or two even

made solo albums, or had parts in movies. Robertson scored some movies and acted

a little too, starring in Carny with Gary Busey and Jodie Foster, but never toured and never recorded a solo effort of his own. Until now.

Robbie Robertson's first solo album was worth waiting for. With some help from Garth Hudson, Rick Danko (formerly of The Band), Peter Gabriel, and members of the BoDeans and the supergroup U2, Robertson has created a hauntingly beautiful album. (More about the U2 /Robertson connection below.)

Robertson calls heavily upon his Native American background and experiences picked up while touring the US and Canada, bringing about a mix of styles and textures that is recognizable as new, but instantly reminiscent of past efforts.

I will admit that on first audition, I was not

enamored with his voice. Guess that's why he didn't sing lead with The Band. But there is something about the music that brought me

back to listen and appreciate again and again. I find that I'm listening to the songs on a daily basis.

Standouts on the album are "Fallen Angel," dedicated to late Band member Richard Manuel (and featuring an entrancing American Indian drum), "Showdown At Big Sky" (in-teresting video), and "Somewhere Down The Crazy River" (great spoken lyrics). All the

songs are strung together by Robertson's stingy guitar style—just enough notes to make the point with emphasis.

The album was recorded in six different studios, from England to Bearsville to LA. Quality is very good in both disc formats, but since the LP has the same number of songs as the CD, save the extra money and enjoy the 12" version. One last thought: listening to both U21

Robertson collaborations on the disc, I realized just how much 122 has borrowed stylistically

from Robertson/The Band; probably the ma-jor influence on one of the most popular bands of the '80s. —Gary S. Krakow

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BOOK REVIEWS

The Neu, Audio Cyclopedia Edited by Glen Ballou

1247 pages, $79.95 (hardcover), first printing, 1987

Published by Howard W. Sams & Co., 4300 West 62nd Street, Indianapolis, IN 46268. Tel: (800) 428-SAMS; in Alaska, Hawaii, and In-diana, (317) 298-5699

One of my oversights, as an audiophile, was never having acquired a copy of the original Audio Cyclopedia. I referred to it a number of times in libraries, and was sorely tempted to purchase it on those rare occasions when it would show up in a local bookstore. But I managed to convince myself, especially in re-cent years, that much of the content was dated. It was, to a degree, but that's rather beside the point. The book was a classic of its kind.

Now there is a new version, completely revamped, with new writers (14 in total) and a new editor. I urge you, if you have any in-terest in the technical aspects of audio and

sound reproduction, not to repeat my mistake. You should seriously consider adding The New

Audio Cyclopedia to your personal audio library.

The book is divided into seven sections, with a total of 31 chapters. The book may be written for professional sound engineers (as is clearly indicated by its title), but don't let that put you off. It is loaded with information that the curious hobbyist will find engrossing, much of it difficult to find elsewhere. You cer-tainly won't find this much basic audio infor-mation gathered together in any other single location.

Part 1, "Acoustics," begins with a discussion of sound fundamentals, extending from that into a discussion of psychoacoustics. You'll find out in this section that a rifle bullet travels

at 1000 ft./s, sound at sea level at 1130—when fired at, you have to duck very quickly. Want to know what a "Mel" is? You'll find out in Chapter 2. Curious about the Scapia, Helix Fossa, and Intertragic Notch? Same chapter. (A hint—Van Gogh would have had a problem as an audio critic.)

Chapter 3, Acoustics of Small Rooms," con-

tains information useful to anyone interested

in designing a custom listening room. The ef-fects of room size, proportion and shape, stand-ing waves and modal frequencies, reflection and diffraction, are all discussed. Chapter 4, "Common Factors in All Audio Rooms," deals extensively with the factors that optimize the acoustic isolation of a room. It's the most thorough discussion of the subject I've seen

anywhere. Chapter 5, "Acoustical Design of Small Rooms," is an excellent discussion of the treatment of the interior of the room itself. Keeping in mind the fact that the author is

primarily considering the design of a small recording studio rather than a dedicated

domestic listening room, the information will

still be extremely useful if applied with a little common sense. The final three chapters of Part 1 deal with

the acoustics of spaces ranging from small recording studios to concert halls and motion-picture theaters; though of little immediate ap-plication in the home listening environment, it is still information worth having.

Part 2 of the Cyclopedia is an excellent col-

lection of data on electronic components— from the lowly resistor, capacitor, and induc-tor, all the way up through transformers, wire, tubes (six pages on the hot little devils), tran-sistors, and integrated circuits. The fourth part puts these components together into various devices: amplifiers, filters, power supplies, and

the like. This is the most technically challeng-ing part of the book, and will be tough sled-

ding for those without technical or design

background. It only takes up about 200 pages, however. One important point: don't expect an audiophile sensibility in these sections; this is strictly by-the-book, measurement-oriented

stuff. That doesn't make it inaccurate—even high-end designers have to know Ohm's Law—but you won't find any hint that the authors recognize passive components as con-tributors to overall sound quality, or cables as being of particular importance.

Part 3 contains excellent chapters on micro-phones and loudspeakers. The discussion of loudspeakers includes descriptions of all types of designs but, as you might expect from the


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book's "professional" slant, tends to emphasize horn designs. Some design information is in-cluded, but it is definitely no substitute for Vance Dickason's The Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, for those planning to "roll their own" loudspeaker systems. Chapter 13, how-ever, has an excellent overview of micro-phones and miking techniques; the author doesn't play favorites, and is fairly evenhanded

in his treatment of various single- and multi-microphone arrangements.

Chapter 22 is a rather long examination of "Consoles and Systems," running to 130 pages.

I confess to almost no knowledge of, or interest in, the design of multitrack mixing consoles.

If you have either, or both, I expect you will find this chapter of value.

Chapter 23, "Disk Recording and Playback," is superb, covering everything from Edison's phonograph to Direct Metal Mastering, from cartridge types (with superb cutaway dia-grams) and stylus profiles to test records. The chapter is crammed full of superb charts, photos, and diagrams. But it does have one

serious weakness, which is the greatest flaw of the book as a whole: The entire discussion of

CD is limited to the last six pages of this 102-page chapter. Yes, there is a separate discus-sion of digital recording—a scant 12 pages—

plus a few references elsewhere in the text, but

the overall treatment of this topic does not come close to giving it the coverage its impor-tance in the world of professional recording would seem to require. The remaining chapters of interest to

audiophiles are #24, "Magnetic Recording and

Playback" (not as striking as the chapter on disk recording, but quite thorough, nevertheless), #30, 'Audio Measurements," and #31, "Fun-damentals and Units of Measurement." The lat-ter is a gold mine of information—a power/ dBm /voltage nomograph; an audible fre-quency-range chart, including the ranges covered by various instruments, related both to frequency and to the piano keyboard; volume and area formulae for various geomet-ric shapes (for easy calculation of the volume of that truncated pyramid loudspeaker sys-tem); and a great deal more.

In short, The Neu. Audio Cyclopedia is a vital, fundamental reference work. It is not the

I Price 514.95. reviewed by DO in %WI° No.. and distributed by Old Colony Sound Lab. PO Box 243. Peterborough. NH 2 Although it costs about the same as one three-foot pair of 03458-0243. good-quality interconnects. Think about that for a minute.

sort of book that you will read in detail from cover to cover, though you could. But for many, it will be an indispensible work of reference—I

have consulted it on numerous occasions in the five weeks since it arrived. As a bonus, all the chapters have extensive lists of references; the book's value extends beyond what lies between its covers. The publisher might find it worthwhile to

issue each section as a separate publication, allowing readers to purchase just those sections

of special interest. It might not be a book that

all audiophiles will want to own, especially

those less technically inclined, but it is a book that, at the very least, you should consider. It isn't cheap,2 but I can envision audio clubs and groups of audiophiles buying joint copies.

Highly recommended. —TJN

The Harmony Illustrated Encyclopedia offazz

by Brian Case and Stan Britt. Third Edi-tion, fully revised by Chess' Murray

208 pages, $22.95 (hardcover), $13.95 (soft-cover)

Published by Harmony Books, Crown Pub-lishers Inc., 225 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10003. Tel: (212) 254-1600

I used to think that I was alone in becoming

disillusioned with the directions jazz took in the late '60s and early '70s. If you examine what happened to the perhaps oppositely directed trails blazed by John Coltrane and Miles Davis (exemplified by the former's A Love Supreme and the latter's In a Silent Way), one led to the

formless anger of what one critic referred to as "Hoot twitter-plonk" music; the other became bowdlerized as the anodyne pap of fusion. And with such potential giants as Oscar Peterson ap-

parently more concerned with developing a rewarding career as a kind of hip Liberace— the last time I saw him in concert, ten years ago,

stands in my memory as one of the most musically disappointing evenings of my life—is it any wonder that jazz took a back seat in my musical development?

And then I read Wynton Marsalis's foreword to this superbly prepared encyclopedia: ". ..we now find ourselves in an era of growing rebellion against the aesthetic denigration of jazz that began when major figures started


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making fools of themselves and dupes of their

listeners. . . (this) resulted from a combination of arrogance, ignorance, and opportunism of such abominable determination that it threatened the essence of a musical art so profound that

its very emergence redefined the history of music . . . the musician who offers the willing and innocent listener an artifact in sound that shows no respect for craft and tradition is be-

ing more than inept . . . this musician is cor-rupting the sensibility of the listening public."

In other words, sterility and meaningless-ness are the legacies of a musical art which

loses contact with its roots—which were ex-actly my feelings 15 years ago! Sure, young players need to establish their own voices, but the rejection of Louis Armstrong, one of the

finest improvisers of all time, as an Uncle Tom figure by a whole generation of black Ameri-

can musicians must have been one of the stupidest artistic decisions ever taken by a body of people. As Marsalis points out, however, there is now a whole generation of young musicians who do not feel that it is sell-ing out to respect what went before and who are developing from a firmer base, with ap-propriate notice taken of their predecessors.

And without apparent detriment to the music. Which is what makes such an excellently

prepared book as this so valuable: it docu-

ments the achievements of just about every important jazz musician or singer, regardless

of their musical taste or direction. This point is made clear by the last entry, concerning Frank Zappa: entering the musical arena via the mushrooming explosion of musical forms in the rock of the late '60s, his contribution to modern improvised music is as important as that of one of the first entries in the book, "traditional" modern jazzer Cannonball Adderley.

The book is lavishly illustrated with photo-graphs and album sleeves, with over 450

artists treated to informed essays covering mainly their recorded careers, followed by complete discographies. This emphasis on recordings perfectly illustrates the lack of documentation about the true nature of jazz—

that it fully exists only as a live, ephemeral event. The authors are well-known on the British jazz scene, but their work is not insular,

being totally international in nature regarding the musicians covered. Perhaps all that is miss-ing from this highly recommended book, preventing it from being a complete history of the 20th Century's most important musical form, are entries for generic musics, such as

"Jazz in Russia" or "The Development of Bebop." A tiny criticism, and perhaps an unrealistic one. Buy and enjoy. —JA

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INDEX TO VOWME X Volume X of Stereophile was published in 1987, with Volume IX covering 1986; VIII, 1985; VII, 1984; VI, 1983; V, 1982; IV, 1977-81;111, 1971-1977;11, 1967-71; and 1, 1962-67. All issues listed are available from our back-issue department; if out of print, they can be supplied in Xerox form. See the advertisement in this issue for details.

Articles & Otherwise 16 Years of Equipment Reports (Cumulative Index). . 7-172 25 Years of Stereopbile (Dell) 1-75 Ambisonic Record Survey (Sunier) 4-187 Balancing Act, A (Burmester) 8-48 Biwiring (Boyk) 8-40 CES Reports Summer 1987 JGH 5-51 Lipnick 5-56 MC 5-68 ST 5-31

Winter 1987 KK 2-36 ST 2-25

Concert-Hall Sound (Lipnick) 5-42 Conductors Compared (Lipnick) 7-44 Controversy The Carver Challenge 3-117/206,5-14 CBS Copycode 5-5/99,7-5/9,8-12 Peter Belt's "Polarizers" 6-83,9-5 Small speakers & bass response . . 3-58,5-89,7-187,8-21 Solid-Core Cable 4-73,6-15/67,9-18

Dahlia Debra DIY loudspeaker, The (DO) 4-65 Desert Song, The (Kessler) 2-36 Down to Absolutes (GG) 4-36 Editor at the Show, The UGH) 5-51 Engineer at the Show, The (MC) 5-68 Essential Toneorm test, The (Stromeyer & Grecnspun) 8-58

European Dahlia DIY loudspeaker, A (MC) 6-79 Flying into Los Angeles (JA) I -59 Gallic Charm (JA) 9-71 High-End Hi -Fi Show Preview UA) 7-90 Impossible Dream: Compusonics, The (Fox) 3-42 Index to Stereophile Volume IX 2-159 Interviews Henry Azima (Mission)UA) 7-68 Bill Firebaugh (Well-Tempered Lab)(JGH) 6-50

Keith Johnson (Reference Recordings)UGH) 3-68 Pierre Lurne (Audiomeca)UA) 9-71 Lincoln Mayorga (Sheffield Lab) UGH) 3-68 Doug Sax (Sheffield Lab)UGH) 3-68

Little Network Workout, A (Watkins & Mitchell) 5-93 London AES, The (JA) 4-55 Matter of taste, A 1-152,2-55,3-177 Mission to Succeed, A UA) 7-68 Moscow Nights UGH) 3-68 Mono, Stereo, Digital (Lehner() 7-58 Musician at the Show, The (Lipnick) 5-56 Musician in the Middle, The (Lipnick) I -65 New & Awful Silence, A (Holland) 6-46 No One Stole the Bass (MC) 5-89 Nothing to Hide UGH) I -85 Real Thing, The (Lipnick) 4-42 Recommended Components 3-91,8-84 Santa Monica Survey, The UA) 5-178 Shot Down in Flames (GG) 6-75 Showbiz: the Heathrow Hi-Fi Show UGH) 9-48 Thin Solid-Core Cable (DO) 6-67 llibe Sound? (Modjeski) 8-75

Well-Tempered Innovator, The UGH) 6-50 Who Stole the Bass? (AHC) 3-58 Workin on the Ftallroad UGH) I -42

As We See It LA/faire Belt UGH) 9-5 Ambisonics, the Future of Sound Reproduction? UA) 8-5 Blind Leading the Deaf, The UGH) 3-5 Canned Music UGH) 2-5 DAT Solution, The UGH) 7-5 Diminishing DAT UGH) 5-5 How We Got Here UGH) I -5 Is It Live? UA) 4-5 Orchestras & Copyright UGH) 6.5

The Audio Cheapskate (Sam Tellig) Adcom OFF-535 power amplifier 8-30 AffiCi Quad ESL-63 stands 1-35 B&K STI40 power amplifier 7-39 13&K ST202 power amplifier 8-31 Conrad-Johnson MV-50 power amplifier 8-35 Counterpoint SA-I2 power amplifier 8-37 Discrete Technology linecords 3-37 Jadis JA-30 power amplifier 7-35 _WC QL-Y5 turntable 1-38 Magnavox CDB650 & 560 CD players 6-36 Onkyo M-504 power amplifier 8-33 Quad 34 preamplifier 3-33 Quad 306 power amplifier 3-33 Radford Renaissance power amplifier 7-37 Recommended Components, Cheapskate-Style 9-38 Reports from Chicago 5-31 Reports from Las Vegas 2-25 Sonographe SD-IA CD player 6-36 Sony CD-P505ES CD player 6-36 Sumo Polaris power amplifier 7-39 Superphon Revelation Basic preamplifier 6-41

Building a Library (Christopher Breunig) Bartok Concerto for Orchestra (David Lennox) . .7-143 Classical Magpie's Nest, A 5-173 Haydn/Beethoven Symphonies 4-161 Julius Kotchen Legacy, The 2-167 Liszt's B-Minor Sonata (Barbara Jahn) 8-145 Mahler Symphony 7 1-189 Mendelssohn Octet (Barbara Jahn) 9-135 Prokofiev Symphony 5 3-190 làughan Williams London Symphony 6-143

Consultation Accuracy or Music from CD 6-139 Biwiring 6-137 Roomy bass 4-154 Cable & conduit 7-139 Cassette tape variations 4-151 CD stabilizers 4-157 Decibels 4-147 Dither 7-133 Editing with the Sony PCM -F1 4-157 Equalizers 4-153 Hi -Fi headache 6-133


Hybrid systems 4-157 Loudness peaks 7-141 Loudspeaker sensitivity 7-137 Loudspeaker toeing-In 6-135 Multiplexing 7-141 No Noise? 7-133 Overcoming meter inertia 7-143 Small amplifiers blow up speakers 6-131 Smooth bass response 4-149 Spade-Lug adaptors 6-137 Subwoofer matching 7-139 Test CDs 6-133 VTA Rake Angle 7-137 Why no television? 6-135

Pure Gold (Alvin Gold) Apogee Duetta Mk Il loudspeaker 2-79 Cambridge Audio CD2 CD player 7-83 Cassette decks 6-83 CBS Copycode 5-99 Ethics & Hi- FI Journalism 8-79 Linn Axis turntable 1-97 Musical Mysticism 6-83 Philips CD960 CD player 2-79 Regs RB300 & RB250 tonearms I -99 Solid-core cable 4 -73 Tower & Midi systems 9-81

Equipment Reports Accessories AKG K DF headphones (BS) 9-129 AKG K 141 headphones (BS) 9-130 Ambico V-0602 IR Receiver system (DAS) 8-141 Beyer Dynamic DT990 headphones (BS) 9-128 Beyer Dynamic DT220 headphones (BS) 9-128 CD CarryDisc UGH) 8-142 CD Saver UGH) 8-143 Cramolin Contact Cleaner (GG) 6-125 Decca Record Brush UGH) 8-142 Jecklin Float Electrostatic headphones (BS) 9-125 Jecklin Float II headphones (BS) 9-129 Koss portero 1 headphones (BS) 9-131 Nagaoka CD Cleaner UGH) 8-143 Record Clamps UGH) 8-142 Recoton CD converter (DS) 3-169 Sennheiser HD 540 Reference headphones (BS) 9-128 Signet Contact Cleaner Kit (GG) 6-125 Signet TK44 headphones (BS) 9-126 Sony MDR-CD6 headphones (BS) 9-130 Sony MDR-S101 headphones (BS) 9-132

Stax Lambda Pro 3 headphones (BS) 9-121 Stax SR-5 NB headphones (BS) 9-125 Stax SR-34 headphones (BS) 9-127 Sumiko FR • I Fluxbuster (ANC) 5-173 Sumiko 'Week Contact Cleaner (GG) 6-125 Watkins Echo-Muffs (AHCJA) 3-170 Yamaha YHD• I headphones (BS) 9-131

Amplifiers (integrated) Lux Brid LV105 (GG) 3-157 Mission Cyrus Two (JA) 7-103

Amplifiers (power) Aragon 4004 (TJN) Audio Research M300 (JGH,MC) Beard P35 (DO) 5-144,6-129 Bedini 150/150 Mk.111 (DO) 7- III Carver M•1.0t UA/JGH/LA) 3-117 Discrete Technology LS-II (AHC) 2-103 Don J. Cochran Delta Mode (DO) 8-116 Forte Model I UGH) 4.86 Hailer XL-280 UGH) I -100 JadisJA-30 (DO) 2-96 Krell KMA-I00 (AHC) 2-86 McIntosh MC 7270 UGH) 2-88 Meitner M TR- 100 (AHC) 2-100

Mirror Image LIS (JGH) 6-106 Motif MS100 (TJN) 9-88 NAD 2600 UGH) 2-92 Onkyo M-308 UGH) 4-87 Radford STA 25 Renaissance (DO) 6-104 Rowland Research Model 5 (LL) 8-122 VTL 30/30 (DO) 2-104,6-102

Amplifiers (preamps) Audio Research SP9 (JGH) 8-111 Electrocompaniet EC-1 (SWW) 9-106 Klyne SK-5A UGH) 6-88 Krell KRS2 (AHC) 4-82 The Mod Squad Line Drive (AHC) 3-153 NYAL Minuet-in-A (GG) 6-96 Rowland Research Coherence 1 (LL) 8-122 Threshold FET 10 UGH) 6-92

Audio Interconnects (DO) 2-136

Cartridges A& R E77Mg (KK) 4-135 A&R P77Mg (KK) 4-135 Adcom SXC/van den Hul (AHC) 5-114 Adcom XC/Microridge 11 (AHC) 5-114 Apature Kocc (KK) 4-134 Argent Diamond (ANC) 5-115 Audio Technica AT-F3 (KK) I -139 Clear Audio Vcritas (AHC) 5-115 Decca Garrott (AHC) 5-116 Decca Super Gold (AHC) 5-117 Denon DL -160 (KK) I -141 Denon DL-301 (ILK) 4-136 Dynavector DV-17DMR (AHC) 5-117 Dynavector DV-23SMR (AHC) 5-117 Goldring Epic (KK) I -141 Goldring GI020 (KK) 2-131 Grado Signature 8 MX (AHC) 5-117 Grado Signature MCX (AHC) 5-118 Kiseki Blue Silverspot (AHC) 5-119 Kiseki Purpleheart Sapphire (AHC) 5-119 Koetsu Black Goldline (AHC) 5-120 Koetsu Rosewood Signature (AHC) 5-120 Linn Basik (KK) 1-142 Linn K9 (KK) 1-143 Linn Karma (AHC) 5-121 Linn Troika UA) 6-98 Mission Solitaire (KK) 2-132 Monster Alpha I (ANC) Monster Alpha 2 (AHC) Monster Alpha HO (AHC) Monster Alpha Genesis 1000 (AHC) Nagaoka MPIO (KK) Nagaoka MPII Gold (KK) 138 Nagaoka MPII Boron (KK) 2 132 Ortofon MC30 Super UGH,AHC) 1 121.5 124 Ortofon MC20 Super (AHC) 123 Ortofon MCIO Super (KK) 2 133 Ortofon XI -MC (KK) 1 1+4 Ortofon X3 -MC (KK) 1 144 RATA RP-40 (KK) 1 1-15

RATA RP-20 (KK) 2 133 Shinon Red Boron (AHC) 6124 Shure M104E (KK) 2 134

9-103 Shure M105E (KK) 139 9-91 Shure V•I5 V MR (AHC) 124

Shure Ultra 500 (AHC) 6 124 Talisman Alchemist IIIS (AHC) S 25 Talisman Virtuoso DTi (AHC) 125 van den Hul MC-10 (AHC) S•126 van den Hul MC-One (AHC) 5-126

5-122 5 -122 5 122 5•122 1 138

CD Players Accuphase DP-80/DC-81 UA) 6-109 California Audio Labs Aria (DO) 7-94 California Audio Labs Tempest (AHC) I -135 California Audio Labs Tempest II (MC) 3-136


Cambridge Audio CD1 (MC) 3-140 Denon DCD-1500 UGH) 2-125 Denon DCD-3300(JGH) 7-98 Discrete Technology LSI Mk.11(AHC) 1-136 Kinergetics KCD-20A (MC,D0) 3-143,4-144 Meridian 207 (MC) 3-146 Mission PCM7000 (GG,MCJA) 2-127,4-91,7-103 Nakamichi OMS 5 II (MC) 4-96 Nakamichi OMS 7 II (MC) 4-96 PS Audio CD-1A (AHC,MC) 1.137,4-93 Sansui "Vintage" DX-90I (DO) 8-127 Shure D-6000 UGH) 7-101 Sonographe SD-IA (AHC,MC) 1.137,3-149 Sony CDP-650ESD II/DAS-703E5 (MC) 4-98 Sony CDP-705ESD UGH) 7-92 Stax CDP Quattro UAJGH) 6-109,7-132 Tandberg TCP 30I5A (AHC) I -138 TEAC ZD-5000 UGH) 3-154 Technics SL-P1200 (MC) 4-102

Loudspeakers Acoustat Spectra III UGH) Acoustic Research 351 UA) Acoustic Research TSW 410 UA) Angstrom Reflexion (BS) Apogee Duetta Mk.II (MC) ARC CS2 (JA) B&W 801 Matrix Series 2 (LL) Camber 1.5 (JA) Celestion System 6000 (MC) Celestion SL6S (JA) dbx Soundfield IA UGH) DX Labs 175 (JA) Eminent Technology LFT III (AHC) GNP Valkyrie (TJN) JBL 18h (JA) KEF R107 (MC) Kevek ES6 (JA) Kindel P.100 Il (TJN) Magnepan SMGa (GG) Magnepan SIGMA (MC) Martin • Logan CLS (MC) Mission 780 Argonaut UA) Monitor Audio R352 UA) Monitor Audio R652MD UA) Ohm Walsh 5 (DO) Pres Classic II (JA) Quad ESL (original) (DO) Quadrant Q-250 UA) Siefert Magnum III (JA) Siefert Maxim IIID (TJN) Snell Type Cii (TJN) Spectrum 410 (BS) Synthesis LM210(JA) Synthesis 1M300 (TJN) lennessee Sound Company Symphony I (DO) Thiel CSI UA) Thiel CS3.5 (AHC) Trtie Image HR-6.5 (JA)

5-147 7-119

7-120 3-163

1-108 7-122,9-133

9-109 7-124 2-106 5-153 4-108 8-131 3-127 3-160

5-156 2-106 5-159

4-122,6-127 7-129 1-108 1-108 7-103 7-125 5-159 4-115 5-160 5-164 8-131 5-161 4-120

2-121,6-127 3-163

8-131 7-114 3-132 5-162 1-104 7-127

Recording Equipment dbx 700 PCM processor (BS) 5-138 NAD 6300 cassette deck (GG) 6-117 Sony PCM-1630 PCM processor (MC) 5-128 Sony DTC-1000ES R-DAT recorder (MC) 5-128

Signal Processors Accuphasc DC-8I D/A converter UA) 6-109 Barcus Berry 200OR Audio Processor (DAS) 4-142 Yamaha DSP.1 ambience synthesizer (BS) 4-124

Tonearms ersa Dynamics 20 UGH) 8-102

Tuners & Aerials Haller D11.330 (DAS) 9-133

Harman/Kardon Citation 23 (DAS) 8-138 Magnum 205 FM Booster (DAS) 6-123 Magnum FT-I01 (DAS) 3-172 Marantz 10B (DAS) 4-140 Maranta ST55I (DAS) 6-120 Nikko NT-950 (DAS) 6-122 Onix BWDI (DAS) 8-137 Pioneer F-77 (DAS) 3-168

Turntables Micro Seiki RX-1500 (SWW) 8-108 RATA Torlyte Linn Sondek LPI2 (CB) 3-129 SOTA Star Sapphire Series III (JGH) 5-105 Versa Dynamics 2.0 UGH) 8-102

Book Reviews Audio IC Op-Amp Applications (JA) 6-151 Classical Music on Compact Disc UA) 7.167 Critics Choice: the Top 100 Albums of All Time (JA) 7.171 Electronic Connections UGH) 6-151 Good Sound UA) 9-167 Loudspeaker Design Cookbook, The (DO) 7-167 New Sound of Stereo, The (JGH) 6-149 Opera on Compact Disc UA) 7-167 Principles of Digital Audio UGH) 6-149

Classical Record Reviews ALFONSO Cantigas de Santa Maria, Nimbus CD 9-149

JS BACH: Goldberg Variations, Harmonia Mundi CD 9-151

13ALAKIREV: Symphony I, EMI CD 7-151 BARBER: Violin Concerto, EMI CD 4-177 BARBER: Agnus Dei, Hyperion CD 6-163 BARTOK: Piano Concerto 3, Recut Records 4-169 BEETHOVEN: Symphony I. Piano Concerto I. Nimbus CD 4-193

BEETHOVEN: Symphony 5, Overtures, Nimbus CD 4-193 BEETHOVEN: Symphony 5, Recut Records 4-169 BEETHOVEN: Symphony 5, Cappriccio CD 7-151 BEETHOVEN: Symphony 6, CBS CD 7-153 BEETHOVEN-LISZT: Symphonies 4/8, Teldec CD . .9-151 BERG: Three Orchestral Pieces, DG CD 9-161 BERNSTEIN: Chichester Psalms, Hyperion CD 6-163 BLISS: Piano Concerto, Unicorn-Kanchana 4-191 BRITTEN: Song Cycles, Chandos CD 9-153 BRUCKNER: Symphonies V:, Deutsche Harmonia Mundi CD 9-153

BRUCKNER: Symphony 6, Orfeo CD 8-151 BYRD: Ttvo Masses, Harmonia Mundi CD 9-155 CAGE: Sonatas & Interludes for Prepared Piano, VQR CD 7-153

CAMPRA: Messe de Requiem, Harmonia Mundi CD/LP 9-155

CAMPRA: Messe de Requiem, Conifer/Erato 9-155 COPLAND: Appalachian Spring, Eight Poems of Emily Dickinson, Reference 4-173

COPLAND: In the Beginning, Hyperion CD 6-163 DURUFLE: Requiem, Telarc CD 7-154 ELGAR: Orchestral Works, Nimbus CD 4-193 FAIDIT: Poubadour Music, Hungaroton CD 7-154 FRANCK: Organ Works, Unicorn-Kanchana CD .. .4 -191 FAURE: Requiem, Telarc CD 7-154 HANSON: Symphony 2, EMI CD 4-177 HAYDN: Symphonies 48/49, DG CD 7-155

HERRMANN: North by Northwest, Varese-Sarabande CD 4-189

HOIST: The Planets, Telarc CD 4-179 JANACEK: Glagolitic Mass, Supraphon CD 7-155 LIADOV: Polonaise Op.49, EMI CD 7-151 MAHLER: Symphony I, Telarc CD 4-179 MAHLER: Symphonies I /2/3, Denon CD 7-155

MAHLER: Symphonies 4/5/6, Denon CD 8-153 MAHLER: Symphony 7, Denon CD 9-157

1'6 Stereophile, February 1988

MESSIAEN: Les Corps Glorieux, Unicorn-Kanchana 4-191

MESSIAEN: La Nativitie du Seigneur. Unicorn-Kanchana 4-191

MOZART: Symphonies 36/38, Telarc CD 7-159 MOZART: Symphonies 40/41, Telarc CD 4-179 MOZART: Violin Concerti, Nimbus CD 4-193 MOZART: Songs, Von, Arabesque CD 8-157 PART: Arbos, ECM CD 8-157 PART: Tabula Rasa, ECM CD 8-157 RACHMANINOV: Piano Pieces, Delos CD 7-161 RACHMANINOV: Symphonic Dances Op.45,

Melodiya/Mobile Fidelity CD 7-161 RAVEL: Piano Concerto in G, Recut Records 4-169 ROSZA: Ben Hur, London CD 8-163 ROSZA: Knights of the Round Table, Lydia, Varese

Sarabande CD 8-163 ROSZA: Quo Vadis, London CD 8-163 ROSZA: Spellbound, Varese Sarabande CD 8-163 ROSZA: The Thief of Baghdad,

Varese Sarabande CD 8-163 ROSZA: Time after Time, Southern Cross CD 8-163 SCHOENBERG: Five Orchestral Pieces, DG CD 9-161 SCHUBERT: String Quintet Op.163, DG CD 7-162 SCHUMANN: Symphonies 1 /3, Denon CD 7-162 SIBELIUS: Symphony 2, Chcsky 4-171 TALNIA: The Ambient Air; etc., CRI 9-159 TCHAIKOVSKY: The Nutcracker, Telarc CD 4-185 TCHAIKOVSKY: Swan Lake. The Sleeping Beauty,

Telarc CD 8-167 TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony 2, Telarc CD 4-183 TELEMANN: Wind Concertos, Archly CD 8-167 VARIOUS: Edition Lockenhaus/Gidon Kremer

Vols.1, 2, 3, ECM CD 8-169 VARIOUS: Equate Brass Baccbanales, Nimbus CD 4-193 VARIOUS: Horn Concerti, Nimbus CD 4-193 VARIOUS: Music for a Viol, Accent CD 8-171

VARIOUS: Music to entertain the Kings of Hungary, Hungaroton CD 8-173

VARIOI'S orchestral spectaculars, Telarc CD 4-179

VARIOUS: Piano Duets, Hungaroton CD 7-162 VARIOUS: Roundup, Telarc CD 4-181 VARIOUS: Russian Piano Music, Chandos CD 7-163 VARIOUS: Russian Tone poems, Mobile Fidelity/ Melodiya CD 8-173

VARIOUS: The Russian Viola, BIS CD 8-173 VARIOUS: The Stokowski Sound, 'relate CD 4-181 VARIOUS: Trumpet Concerti, Nimbus CD 4-193 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Mass in g, Songs, Nimbus CD 7-162 VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: Symphony 2, The Lark Ascending, Telarc CD 4-185

WEBERN: Six Orchestral Pieces, DG CD 9-161 ZWIL1CH: Chamber Symphony, etc., CRI CD 9-161

Non-Classical Record Reviews Laurindo Almeida & Ray Brown,

,Sloonlight Serenade. Jeton CD 7-165 Warren Bernhardt, Hands On, DMP CD 7-163 Randy Brecker, In the Idiom, Denon CD 8-174 Eddie Gomez, Gomez, Denon CD 9-163 Wynton Marsalis, Mai-salis Standard Time Vol. I 9-163 Frank Morgan Quintet, Bebop Lites!, Contemporary CD 7-165

Alan Parsons, Sterrotomy, Arista 4-189 The Windham Hill Storybook Classics, Various artists, Windham Hill 9-141

Frank Zappa, We're Only In It for the Money/ Lumpy Graty, Rykodisc CD 8-174

Frank Zappa, The Grand Wazoo, Rykodisc CD 8-174 Frank Zappa, Oternite Sensation/Apostrophe;

Rykodisc CD 8-174 Frank Zappa, Shut Up 'n' Play Wr Guitar, Rykodisc CD 8-174

Frank Zappa, The London Symphony Orchestra, Rykodisc CD 8-174

Frank Zappa. Them or Us, Rykodisc CD 8-174 Frank Zappa, Thing-Fish, Rykodisc CD 8-174 Frank Zappa, Meets the Mothers of Prevention, Rykodisc CD 8-174

Frank la:: from Hell. Rykodisc CD 8-174

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VOLUME VIII, 1985 5.00 Issues 1 through 8 500 7 50'

VOLUME V, 1982

Issues 1 through 10 5.00

VOLUME VI, 1983 Issues 1. 2. 4. 5 Issues 3, 6

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VOLUME X, 1987 Issues 1 through 9 500

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I -8 Stereophile, February 1988

MANUFACTURERS' COMMENTS Wilson WATT loudspeaker Editor:

Martin CoHorns's review of our Wilson Audio Tiny Tot (WATT) loudspeaker system was in-

sightful and, as usual, thoroughgoing. The WATT was originally designed as a very

high-resolution instrument for evaluating audio hardware and software. After an exten-

sive analysis of which sonic qualities the speaker could not compromise in order to give me the information I needed, and keeping in

mind the requirement for compact size, three primary sonic desiderata of the WATT were established: 1) soundstage accuracy; 2) sheer clarity and focus achieved through significant reductions in system resonances and time-domain errors; and 3) precision in resolving dynamic shading. In addition to their impor-tance analytically, these qualities contribute greatly to a sense of musical involvement. It was satisfying to see these outstanding quali-ties of the WATT recognized in the review. The review also pointed out two areas of

concern in the measured performance which I would like to address. As measured by Colloms, the modulus of

impedance drops to about 0.3 ohm in the 2kHz region. While not as low as the approx-imately 0.1 ohm impedance exhibited by the certain ribbon-system midrange elements, direct-coupled, it would, nevertheless, seem that the WATT is suitable for only the most current-wieldy of solid-state amps, such as the Rowland Model 7, Krell KMA or KRS, Mark Levinson ML-20, Threshold SA-1, or Spectral DMA-200. While it is true that many WATIb are thus powered, it is also true that large numbers of WATTs are effectively driven by amplifiers not considered to be high-current designs, such as the JadisJA-30 (30Wpc, tubes).

Vile successfully use the little Spectral DMA-50 (80Wpc) for location monitor use. In fact, the Spectral DMA-50/WATT combination was able to provide very convincing sound-pres-sure levels, within the first ten rows of seats, during playback evaluation for recording ses-

sions with David Abel and Julie Steinberg in the Mills College Concert Hall, which seats over 500 people.

Ken Kessler noted good results using a

30Wpc Radford vacuum-tube amplifier in his review of the WATT in the January 1988 issue of HFN/RR. Problems caused by this dip in impedance have been extremely rare, consid-ering the population of WATTs in various lis-tening habitats throughout the world. On the other hand, the measures which I

have tried, in order to raise this impedance dip, have all compromised the speaker's perfor-

mance in key areas (particularly clarity and dynamics) to a degree which was audible

much of the time. Why compromise key areas of musical quality in order to achieve an elec-trical quality which is apparently only rarely necessary? The low-frequency response of the WATT

is measurably lean relative to the midrange due to four factors: 1) the woofer's very large elec-trodynamic motor, which provides superior damping and power handling; 2) the QB-3 Thiele and Small alignment, which trades off some upper-bass response to achieve superior

transient response and power handling; 3) the small baffle area, which minimizes upper-octave diffraction for better soundstaging; and 4) the absence of panel resonances, which would otherwise add energy (not musical in-

formation) to the mid- and upper bass. To achieve more low-frequency output

from such a compact system by altering any of the above design approaches would com-promise the primary sonic desiderata of sound-staging, clarity, and dynamic resolution. If there is a speaker out there which performs as well as the WATT in these areas, is as compact and has more extended bass of equal quality, I would like to know. As the review mentioned, Wilson Audio is providing two special stand accessories: the 2 pi Panel and the Gibraltar

Stand, to augment the system's output essen-

tially passively and purely acoustically. The WATT owner's manual explains, in detail, the acoustical behavior of the system in the low frequencies, and the effects of room acoustics

and placement on that behavior. For those re-quiring even more midbass through lower midrange balance, we will be offering a passive

equalization network, designed by John Curl, which will interface with the power amplifier's input.


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Why don't we just package the WATB with 2 pi Panels or EQ networks? The surprising

reason is that about a third of the users of the WATT wouldn't use them. Many WATTs are used rested atop Entec SW-5 woofers, which provide 2 pi support, and substantial output below 100Hz. Other users, perhaps because of room acoustics, associated electronics, or simply musical preferences, actually find the 2 pi Panel adds too many low frequencies for

their tastes. This in spite of the fact that the 2 pi Panel provides the least low-frequency augmentation of any of the three accessories mentioned.

In an earlier issue of S(ereopbile, J. Gordon Holt stated the verity, "If it measures good and sounds bad . . . it is bad." The areas of undeni-

able sonic excellence of the WATT tend to be rather difficult to measure directly. Thus,

graphs of "soundstaging," "clarity," and "dy-namic shading" are not available to publish next to graphs of "impedance" and "frequency response." Which measurements are most im-

portant? The final proof is in the listening. David A. Wilson

Wilson Audio Specialties

Spica Angelus loudspeaker Editor:

Thanks for the excellent review of our new Angelus speaker. I am grateful to the reviewer for his patience with the Angelus's need for a rather extended break-in, but, as he experi-

enced, it is worth the wait. Also appreciated are his sensitivity to see the product for what it is (not a 4' tower of power), and to articulate its strengths and weaknesses in a well-bal-anced way. And personally, being a musician and recordist myself, it gives me deep satisfac-tion to hear that another engineer finds that his own recordings are reproduced spatially as he had originally intended—I love it! A small technical correction: the version of

the Audax TPX driver we use has a nonstan-

dard surround; the standard version is opti-mized for reflex enclosures.

I would like to recommend that any readers who might choose to audition the Angelus at their local dealer inquire about how long they have been in use. It really does make a big difference.

John Bau Director, Spica

Audio Concepts Quartz loudspeaker Editor: I'd like to thank Tom Norton for the time and effort he put into the review of the Quartz. I

have to admit being puzzled at first by the col-orations he reported; they just didn't fit with my perception, or the comments we have received from owners and other listeners. But

I have a theory of what may have happened. As Tom says, the Quartz is definitely not a laid-

back speaker. Further, the small woofer does give fiat output to below 50Hz, but because of the small cone size, the woofer does not have the dynamic range below 100Hz that the rest of the system has. So as the volume goes up, the bass response becomes compressed compared to the rest of the range. The system begins to sound nasty in the midrange because it is no longer balanced. This is why we recommend it for use with subwoofers. I believe this would have altered Tom's opinion considerably. I also noticed that Tom said ab-solutely nothing about imaging capabilities. This is unfortunate, as correct three-dimen-sional imaging is one of the strong points of the Quartz. Thanks to feedback from our customers and

Tom, we have made some further improve-ments in our service and the Quartz, includ-ing: 1) Our money-back guarantee now covers everything but return shipping to us. 2) The

revised Quartz and Quartz II have a totally removable grille structure. It looks better, and allows the critical listener to virtually eliminate diffraction. 3) The revised Quartz and Quartz H will have a new manual which will be even more detailed than the last one. Again, thanks for the review and the ideas

that you have shared with us. ibm's comments have helped us improve our products and ser-vices and we are grateful!

Mike Dzurko President

Wingate 2000A power amplifier Editor: Thank you for your helpful comments. We have made changes in the voltage reference and regulated power supplies which, I believe, have completely corrected the deficiencies that the Lesley Test pointed out. All units presently in the field can be updated to the current series.


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The changes impact several areas greatly, especially improving midrange transparency, overall dynamics, and low-level detail. The ad-vantages of the zero-feedback gain stage are now quite evident. We have found it best to

avoid the use of any overall, or even local, negative feedback in the voltage gain stages, to preserve the dynamics and transient re-sponse of the original recording. Negative feedback clearly causes sonic degradation by generating TIM, even in tube circuitry This is

why all Wingate products avoid the use of feedback wherever possible.

I would like to make several minor correc-tions. The Wingate 2000A is indeed a true dual-mono power amplifier. The definition of dual-mono is that each channel has its own

power supply, and both channels are electrical-ly isolated, including ground. The Wingate 2000A fits this definition. Both channels are electrically isolated, even though they share the same printed circuit board. Thus the

2000A has the added RFI immunity that results from avoiding a ground loop between chan-nels as well as better imaging from having separate power supplies. There are no output relays in the 2000A.

The outputs are directly connected. The relays referred to in the review change the gain of the driver stages only, to allow the voltages to stabilize initially. After three to five minutes, the relays open, each switching the respective

channel of the amplifier to a high gain stage. Thank you again for the helpful comments,

Dick. They have resulted in a greatly improved product, for which I am grateful.

Steve Wingate President, Wingate Audio Corporation

Sima W -3050 power amplifier Editor: It is with much consternation and confusion that we are writing this comment. Since we

have received the preliminary review of the SIMA Electronique W-3050 Amplifier we have been inundated with calls from the Canadian manufacturer, his distributor in Canada, and various other individuals who have access to the audio grapevine. The reasons for this are many. The SIMA

W-3050 has been highly reviewed in the Cana-dian press and acclaimed by our US dealers. As for TJN's comments, he obviously writes for Stereophile, but he must not read the

magazine too carefully. In Von() No.4, p.206, is a half-page display ad for SIMA Electronique.

Check Vol.9 No.7 for Bill Sommerwerck's review of the Canadian CES. I could go on, but I would be belaboring the point. The SIMA Electronique W-3050 is a low-power, high-

current (50Wpc at 45 amps) amplifier, and to be able to drive the notoriously inefficient Apogees is quite impressive. The manufacturer recommends a minimum of 100Wpc. Defi-nitely not a neutral speaker system. (See TAS, Vol.12 No.49, for John Nork's review.) The Klyne SK-5A is also noted to work wonder-fully in the right system, but has a tendency to have a "slightly laid back perspective" (Stereophile Vol.10 No.6, p.90, JGH), and can sound lifeless and dull with some systems. The Monster cables are known to be soft and lean-ing toward the dull side (HFN/RR, V)l.32 No.6, p.43, Martin Colloms). Matched with the right equipment—for example, preamps and power amps that are lean or bright—they can be more than acceptable and provide a smooth, balanced sound. What I am trying to convey is that com-

patibility is crucial in any system. The ability

of a reviewer to be able to determine the neutrality and/or colorations of components and interconnects is essential. Once the sonic signature of the associated piece of equipment is determined it is then possible to make an ac-curate aves.sment of the faults or virtues of the piece of equipment. Substitutions will always

be necessary to achieve as neutral and bal-anced a sound as possible. A reviewer's method must be beyond reproach or the results will not be valid. A little effort by TJN to set up a compatible

system would have rewarded him many times over. Unfortunately he didn't do that. After six months with the equipment all we have are cursory and sophomoric comments about the sonic signature of his "system" and his own preferences, and not a review of the SIMA W-3050 amplifier. To say the least, his testing procedure, in this

instance, deserves close scrutiny. After check-ing back issues of Stereophile, this appears to be his first amplifier review (lucky us!).

In any case, this review is not indicative of what the SIMA W-3050 is capable of, and we feel quite justified in asking for a follow-up by JGH or JA. Stereophile has always been fair and very gracious in reviewing the products that


• s

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George M. Graves from Stereophde (Sept. 1987) comments on the Minuet in A"

The Highs? The highs are liquid smooth. with lots of space around the instruments."

The Bass? The bass is tight, well-defined, and goes really deep."

CD Section: "Good CDs are reproduced the kind of heft on the bottom end

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Phono Stage: "Very quiet ... more than i.nough (gain) for almost any low-output MC cartridge: -

Summary: "It sounds just delicious, it's quiet and its flexible / know of no other preamp at anywhere near this unit's price that comes within a mile of it sonically -.

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we import and we hope they continue their "neutral" attitude.

"For a reviewer, though, neutrality is ex-tremely important." (Stereopbile Vol.8 No.7, p.99, JGH.)

Brian V. Bolger Audiophile Accessories

dbx 120X-DS subharmonic synthesizer Editor: We cannot explain the absence of "effect" that the reviewer experienced some of the time,

although it is true that prudent amounts of synthesized frequencies are sonically more pleasing than the opposite. The 120X-DS is a patented multiband design, like its predeces-sors (which lacked separately adjustable filters) and unlike the one-band Audio Control, which the review describes incorrectly. It would have been interesting to hear whether independently changing the levels in each of the four filters helped match speaker with material (and vice versa) better. Another reason for this feature is to avoid completely any growliness in the upper bass.

David Moran Marketing Services Manager, dbx

Parasound HCA-800 power amplifier Editor: Thank you for your thorough and favorable review of the Parasound HCA-800. I'm very proud of this unit. Permit me to clarify a few things:

1. While the HCA-800 is not rated into 2 ohm loads, it is capable of sustained operation below 4 ohms. The real objective was to per-mit users to run 2 pairs of 4 ohm speakers rather than drive speakers such as the Apogees, which are not only insensitive, but very low impedance at most frequencies.

2. I don't agree with your conclusion that readers should take caution in considering the HCA-800 with other than "conventional, average-efficiency dynamic" speakers. It sounds positively glorious with old Quads (notorious capacitive load), ESL-63s, or Mag-gies. And at the top end of a bi-amped system (which was one of the applications for which it was designed—and, I might add, requested by our dealers!), the HCA-800 is right at home

3. The HCA-800 can be bridged (a switch is

on the rear apron) for 250W RMS mono opera-

tion. This makes it one of the most practical building blocks for an audiophile whose start-ing budget is limited but who suspects he/ she'll upgrade in the future.

4. The HCA-800 uses gold-plated input jacks and rugged 5-way output terminals to ac-cept standard double-banana plugs. Its power supply employs 36,000uF of premium capaci-tors. And its bandwidth is the same as the D/AS-1000: 10Hz-100kHz. It should cost more.

5. I haven't found a CD player that can overload the HCA-800 cascode input stage, so compatibility should be no problem. If used with a preamp, setting the HCA-800 level con-trols to maximum effectively removes them from the signal path to avoid possible degra-dation.

6. I can't wait to hear how the Audio Cheap-skate likes it!

Richard Schram President, Parasound Products, Inc.

Nitty Gritty 1.0 record cleaner Editor: I can't believe that you are still using and even "recommending" record-cleaning brushes, even in the context of "accessories for every-

man." I feel this is a disservice to the Stereo-pbile readership.

There is no brush, nor is there a technique in using any brush, that can truly get a record clean. A simple 30x microscope (such as the one Radio Shack makes) is sufficient to reveal the particles of dust that are left behind by any known brush or technique, including the one that you propose in Val° No.8 (November '87). Of course, the little matters of grease and

static charge are also arguments against any hand-held brush. The price of Nitty Gritry's most basic cleaner

shouldn't be an obstacle, even to "everyman." The $259 price tag represents a small invest-ment compared to the bountiful benefits of improved sound and infinitely extended record preservation that the Nitty Gritty will provide.

I am sending you our basic Nitty Gritty (model 1.0) immediately, out of my respect for you and your profession. Sterile, nonabrasive, nonstatic record sleeves are also an essential

component in the audiophile's effort to opti-


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mize the record's sonic performance. I am in-cluding a package for your evaluation. Please

use these with our compliments. M. Baskin

Nitty Gritty Record Care Products, Inc.

Clearaudio Souther Ventas cartridge Editor. Thank you for the time and effort Mr. Anthony

Cordesman took in reviewing the Clearaudio Souther Ventas (Von() No.5). Please note that this Clearaudio Souther Ventas cartridge is a five-year-old design, and the cartridge being reviewed was over two years old as compared

to the brand-new design of the Monster Alpha Genesis 1000. I agree with JA's footnote (p.110). We know,

through years of experience, that the cited JVC 1007 test record TRS-1007 Mk.II is perfectly

flat from 20Hz to 10kHz. During the past ten years Clearaudio has used over 400 of these records. Therefore, we are probably more familiar with it than most reviewers. We have found there are even significant deviations

from record to record. We have observed over time that the rise in output level above 10kHz is inherent in the record. This is caused by resonance which occurs during the cutting process. Hence, all good high-end cartridges must show these same characteristics.

For your information, our current Clear-audio Gammas ($400 retail) are better than our earlier models of the Ventas, which was tested

in the above-mentioned issue, and our current Clearaudio Ventas MC cartridges are far supe-rior to the earlier production.

Thank you once again. Peter Suchy

President, Clearaudio electronic GmbH

Paradigm 5se loudspeaker Editor:

Thank you for a favorable review of the Para-digm 5se loudspeaker in Vol.11 No.1 of Stereo-phile. We are pleased that JA found the 5se to be the high-quality, musical performer that it is. Through its complete product range, Para-digm strives to provide balanced, musical loudspeakers that compare well with much more expensive product. Judging by JA's com-ments, along with those from many retailers and consumers, Paradigm has indeed suc-ceeded in this goal.

We would like to reiterate the point made in the review regarding speaker colorations. As you are aware, speaker design is a very com-plex task, and no matter how exceptional the engineering, colorations continue to persist. No speaker, at this time, is perfectly true to the original music The Paradigm 5se has very low

levels of coloration that easily allow it to fall into the high-performance category. This level of performance is so unexpectedly good that the 5se is consistently compared with much more expensive products which, in many cases, have considerably higher levels of col-

oration. This fact alone would make the 5se a speaker worthy of serious consideration by audiophiles. However, when the price is con-sidered, the high level of musical precision that the Paradigm 5se achieves is indeed very remarkable, as JA discovered. Paradigm speakers are completely designed

by Paradigm. Co-engineered tweeters are

carefully selected and matched with Paradigm precision crossovers to Paradigm woofers. Pro-duction consistency is ± 0.5dB. This level of

control ensures that Paradigm loudspeakers will sound consistent and accurate for many

years of listening pleasure W.A. Vandermarel

Audiostream

Shure HTS5000 home theater sound system Editor:

The Shure HTS5000 has been mentioned for some time now in the Recommended Com-ponents listing in Stereophile since its original review in Vol.9 No.2. There is one statement, however, that continues to disturb us, in that it did not appear in the original review or subsequent letters to the editor. The statement relates to image collapse in the presence of front-center information when a center-channel loudspeaker is used. The Shure HTS5000 and the new Shure

HTS5200 are both designed to be used with a center-channel loudspeaker as the preferred mode when decoding program material en-coded using the Dolby Motion Picture matrix

process. Under these circumstances, there is no evidence of soundfield collapse in the presence of center information. This fact can be readily verified using any number of high-quality program examples such as Back to the Future, Return of the jedi, Out of Africa, or


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Prizzes Honor. Since these programs were produced while being monitored through a professional theater decoder with matching characteristics, any tendency toward this oc-currence would be immediately noted and corrected by altering the mix.

There is, however, the possibility of unde-sirable soundfield changes (such as image col-lapse) with stereo programs that bave not been encoded with this process or have been copied with errors from the program master. This type of problem is similar to using various forms of playback noise reduction on program material that was not originally encoded with a complementary process.

In those instances where soundfield change is felt to be a problem, both HTS decoders of-fer two-speaker stereo bypass and stereo sur-round synthesis modes, that do not employ any channel-separation-enhancement signal processing. This type of problem, however,

generally does not occur even with non-encoded program material.

As an additional comment, we feel that it would be a service to Stereophile readers, in the future, to separate the surround-sound decoder category in your Recommended Com-ponents section into two basic groups: prod-ucts that decode encoded program material (Re-Creation Products) and those that are pri-marily involved with the enhancement of un-encoded program material (Creative Products). This separation of product types should serve to reduce confusion on the part of the con-sumer as to the types of surround-oriented products available.

Robert B. Schulein General Manager, Shure Home Theater Sound

Electrocompaniet EC-1 preamplifier Editor:

Once again we must commend Sterrophile for its continuing efforts to stimulate an exchange of ideas in its columns so readers can best

evaluate and select components for their music systems. We refer to Steve \1Vatkinson's review of our Electrocompaniet EC-1 Preamplifier in the December 1987 issue. Obviously, we heart-ily concur in his "outstanding recommenda-tion" as well as his praise of the EC-1's "supe-rior sonic performance" and "excellent value."

Unfortunately, a crucial observation con-tained in our comments (Stereopbile,Decem-

ber 1987, p.175) inadvertently, we are sure, ended up on the cutting-room floor. That por-tion of our unreported comments addressed what Steve WatIcinson perceived as a slight col-oration which he said he suspected was trace-able to the RIAA phono stage. To allay your reviewer's suspicions, our comments noted

these measurements, which speak for them-selves:

The RIAA stage of the EC-1 measures ± 0.075dB and distortion for the entire no-loop feedback design circuitry is less than

0.0037%. We believe these measurements are profoundly pertinent to the other virtues Steve

Watkinson found in the preamplifier and respectfully request that Stereopbile add this information to its published dialogue concern-ing the EC-1.

Mel Schilling Music and Sound Imports


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Ridgewood Sounding Board 75 Franklin Ave Tom's River Rands Camera and Hi Fi 1841 Hooper Ave Trenton Hals Stereo Lake Lawrence Plaza Verona Audio Connection 615 Bloomfield Ave Westfield Stuart's Audio 3 Grand Ave

NEW MEXICO Albuquerque Hudson's Audio Center 7611 Menaul NE Page One Newsstand 11200 Montgomery NE

Santa Fe The Candyman 851 St Michaels Dr Downtown Subscription 130 W Palace Galisteo News 201 Galisteo

Ovation Audio 1310 Osage, Ste A Santa Fe Audio Video 120 W San Francisco

NEW YORK Albany Clark Music Audio 1075 Troy Schenectady Rd Batavia Unicorn Audio 206 E Main St

Binghamton JSG-Audio 1437 Front St Buffalo Speaker Shop 3604 Main St Stereo Emporium 3407 Delaware

Colonie MOM'S MUSIC Systems 1593 Central Ave Goshen Long Player Stereo 60 N Church St


THE•F INEST•PR °DUCTS SUPERIOR•SERVICE

Adcom • AKG • AR • Audio Research • Bang & Olufsen • Boston Acoustics Bryston • California Audio Labs • Canton • Celestion SL • CWD • Dahlquist Denon • Forte • Fosgate • Grado • Infinity • Janis • Kyocera • M & K Magnepan • MIT • Monster • NAD • Nakamichi • NEC • Nitty Gritty Oracle • Pioneer Video • Revox • SME • Snell • Sonographe • SOTA Spica • Stax • Sumiko • Talisman • Tandberg • Threshold • Van den Hul

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MAJOR AUDIO Eagle NAD Stax Wilson/ WATT ADS Eminent Technology Nakamichi Sumiko Yamaha Audio Research Grado Signature Nelson-Reed Talisman VIDEO Bryston Magnepan Oracle Tandberg NAD Cambridge Martin-Logan SME Thiel NEC Counterpoint Meitner Audio Signet Thorens Nova Beam CWD Meridian Sonographe Threshold Pioneer DBX Mission Snell VPI Sony DCM MIT SOTA Vandersteen Yamaha Duntech Monster/Alpha Spica Velodyne and more'

Modern Demo Facility, Specialty Accessories, Records and CDs In-store Service, Custom Design Service, No Mail Orders Please

105 Whitney Ave., New Haven, CT 06510

Mon ,Wed ,Fri,10-6,Thurs.,10-8,Sat ,10-5, MC/VISA/AMEXJTAKE 5 Charge


Huntington Station Audio Breakthrough 129 Route 110 Lake Grove Audio Den Ltd Smith Haven Plaza 2021 Nesconset Hwy

Lynbrook American Audiophile 373 Sunrise Hwy Mamaroneck Definitive Hi Fi 154 E Boston Post Rd Manhasset Audio Breakthrough 1534 Northern BI Merrick Performance Audio 2064 Sunrise Hwy Mount Kisco Fox and Sutherland 15 South Moger Ave

New York City Audio Breakthrough 199 Amsterdam Ave Electronic Workshop 10 E. 8th St Leonard Radio 55 W. 44th St Lyric Hi -Fi Inc. 1221 Lexington Ave and 2005 Broadway Stereo Exchange 687 Broadway Sound by Singer 165 E 33rd

Pleasantville Audio Excellence 343 Manville Rd Rochester Paul Heath Audio 217 Alexander Sound Concepts 2314 Monroe Ave Roslyn Select Sound 1345 Old Northern BI Scarsdale The Listening Room Inc. 590 Central Park Ave Smithtown Audio Enjoyment 11 Caroline Ave

Stonybrook Esoteric Sound Systems Coventry Commons Route 347

Syracuse Superior Sight and Sound 2780 Erie BI E Wappinger Falls Sound Odyssey Inc. 55 Route 9 West Babylon Audio Visions 1067 Montauk Hwy White Plains Harvey Electronics 236 E. Post Rd Lyric Hi Fi 146 E Post Rd Woodside Leonard Audio 69-34 51st Ave

NORTH CAROLINA Chapel Hill Select Audio Systems 1502 Smith Level Rd Charlotte Sound Systems 3748 E Independence BI Durham Audio Visions 4600 Chapel Hill Rd

Greensboro The Book Collection 117 N Greene St Sound Systems 2148 Lawndale Raleigh Audio Advice 3532 Wade Ave

Wilmington Atlantic Audio 4127 Oleander Dr

OHIO Cincinnati Audible Elegance 9464 Montgomery Rd Pete's News Shop 308 Ludlow Ave Soteric Audio 4611 Montgomery Stereo Lab 11419 Princeton Rd and 4582 Montgomery Columbus Custom Stereo Electronics 1391 S. Hamilton Rd Dublin Audio Encounters 4271 W. Dublin Granville Rd Fairborn Audio Etcetera 2626 Col. Glen Hwy Findlay Audio Specialties 229 N. Main St Heath Threshold Audio 409 S 22nd St Kettering Hauer Music 3140 Far Hills Ave Lorain Grasso's Audio 4355 Oberlin Ave

Miamisburg Stereo Showcase Prestige Plaza 5 N. Olmsted Maximum Compact 4755 Great Northern BI Parma DeSiero Enterprises 7517 Southington Dr Sandusky Audio Force 521 E Perkins Ave Toledo Audio Center 1546 Alexis Rd Jamiesons' 3417 Dorr St University Heights Atlantis Home Entertainment Systems 2220 Warrensville Rd

OREGON Grants Pass Casey Distributing 1201 Jaymes Dr Portland Hawthorne Stereo 1428 SE 36th

PENNSYLVANIA Butler Audiophile Accessories 119 E Wayne St Hershey Stereo Barn 251 W. Chocolate Ave Philadelphia Chestnut Hill Audio 149 N. 3rd Discovery Discs 3417 Spruce St

Waynesburg T.C. Audio Toys RD 2. Box 1

PUERTO RICO

Puerto Nuevo Laser Sound de Diego Ave #272 Rio Piedras On Top Audio 332-8 Ave Jesus T P,nero

RHODE ISLAND Providence CD City 358 Broadway St Ocean State Audio 304 Thayer St

SOUTH CAROLINA Columbia Sound Advice 2821 Ashland Rd Greenville Sound Source 941 Haywood Rd Wise Audio 1001 N. Pleasantburg Dr Suite B West Columbia Upstairs Audio 746 Harden St

TENNESSEE Memphis Underground Sound 2125 Central Ave

TEXAS Amarillo Sound Systems Ltd 2502 Paramount Austin Audio File 9041 Research #200 Cochran Corp. 2830 Real St Beaumont Beaumont Sound 5925 Phelan

Dallas Krystal Clear Audio 5330 Longview Omni Sound 4833 Keller Springs Preston Trail Audio 17390 Preston Rd #320 El Paso Soundquest Inc 6800 Gateway E 1D Houston Esoteric Ear 4230 Glenchase Lane Odessa Harold's Electronics 2809 Andrews Hwy San Antonio Bill Case Sound 4319 Medical Dr #106 Concert Sound 7103A Blanco Rd

UTAH Ogden The Hi Fi Shop 2236 Washington BI Salt Lake City Audition Audio 2144 Highland Dr Discriminator Music 1788 S 1100 E

VERMONT Burlington City Stereo 207 College St S. Burlington Audio Den 100 Dorset St

VIRGINIA Alexandria Excalibur 323 S Washington Bailey's Crossroads Audio Buys 5177 Leesburg Pike Skyline Mall

Charlottesville Preferred Sound 309 E Water St Danville Aeolian Products & Svcs 215 Main St Fredericksburg Contemporary Sounds 1236 Jefferson Davis Hwy Leesburg High C Stereo 212 E Market St Richmond Audio Art 2215 Broad St Virginia Beach Digital Sound. Inc 6519 College Park Sq

WASHINGTON Billingham The Landing Discs and Tapes 1307 11th St Seattle Bulldog News 4208 University Way NE Definitive Audio 6017 Roosevelt Way NE University Bookstore 4326 University Way NE Spokane Hal's Stereo W 313 Sprague Ave Tacoma The Stereo Shoppe 11007 Bridgeport Wy SW Walla Walla Tiger Todd Productions 1509 E Isaacs

WEST VIRGINIA Morgantown Sound Investments Inc. 467 High St

WISCONSIN Cudahy Cudahy News & Hobby 4758 S Packard Ave

Glendale Sound Investments 2500 W Silver Spring Dr Wisconsin Rapids Salon I Audio 2031 W Grand Ave

CANADA National Distributor Fenwick, Ontario Thomas Ruehle 850 Roland Rd

ALBERTA Calgary KW Audio 344 17th Ave SW Edmonton Audio Ark 10746A 124th St Red Deer Audio West 4715-49th St

BRITISH COLUMBIA Vancouver Big Bird Audio Visual 740 Marine Dr Music Works 4740 Main St


74, teedle.saen.d.L A good listener needs to hear more than the subtle differences between high quality components.

As a salesperson, a good listener needs to hear the subtle differences between customers who are searching for the right component to complement their system.

If you need to be heard, call. . .

NEIL McPHEE 1-800-832-0234

"'IT& IIND

60 Speedwell Avenue Morristown, NJ 201/267-6700

I9() Stereophile, February 1988

Victoria Sweet Thunder Records 621 Johnson St

MANITOBA Winnipeg Creative Audio 214 Osborne St S

NEW BRUNSWICK Fredricton Magic Forest Music Store 546 Queen St

NOVA SCOTIA Halifax Atlantic News 5560 Morris St

ONTARIO Brampton Eastmen Audio 295A Queen St E. Essex Essex Audio Consultants 5 Francis Ct Guelph Guelph Hi Fi 5 Speedvale Ave E.

Hamilton Globe Audio 552 1/2 Upper James St Globe Discount 217 King St E.

Kingston House of Sounds 277 Princess St Vern Napier Camera 333 Princess St London Multi-Mag 116 Dundas St Milton Sound Man 629 Main St E

Ottawa Distinctive Audio 160 Bruyere, Unit 7 Euphonies 687 Bank St Saros 132 Bank St Stereo Trading Post 242 1/2 Bank St

Peterborough The Audio Room 300 George St N Richmond Hill Linear Sound 10176 Yonge St Thornhill Stereo Factory 7616 Yonge St

Toronto Audio Empire 1011 Albion Rd

Classic Audio 1894 Lawrence Ave E

Great National Sound 615 Queen St W High End Audio 2216A Queen St E. Ring Audio 553 Queen St W. Toronto Home of Audiophile 150 Dundas St W

Waterloo Sound Stage 56 Regina St N Whitby Whitby Audio 223 Brock St S Windsor Better Audio 106 Eugenie St W

QUEBEC Ste-Foy Rotac Electronics 2873 Ch Ste•Foy

AUSTRALIA National Distributor Thornbury, Victoria Audio 0 Imports 649 Burwood Rd Hawthorn 3122

DENMARK National Distributor Graestad Matrix Bylyngen 4, Blistrup

ENGLAND National Distributor Wilstead, Bedford Moth Marketing 10 Dane Lane Glasgow G2 Music Room 221 St Vincent St London Audio T 190 Westend Ln Douglas Brading Hi Fi 18 Monmouth St Covent Garden KJ Leisuresound Ltd 26 New Cavendish St Sound Information 13 St John's Hill

Manchester Music Room 50 Bridge St Reading Berks Reading Hi Fi Harris Arcade Friar St

HONG KONG Aeroplax Limited Room 201 Canton House 54-56 Queen's Rd Central The Sound Chamber Suite 1001, Dina House 11 Duddell St

ICELAND National Distributor 125 Reykjavik Stein' HF, S. Danielsson Skulagata 61

ITALY National Distributor Lucca, 55100 Sound and Music Via Mazzarosa 125

JAPAN National Distributor Suma-Ku, Kobe Vente 3-6-1 Sekimori-Cho

NETHERLANDS Amsterdam RAF HrFi Stereo Rrinstraat 142-150 Eindhoven Sound Guided Van Kanstraat 12

NORWAY National Distributor

N-0134 Oslo 1 Audio Import Ltd Box 9193 Vaterland

SINGAPORE National Distributor Flair System B1 -03/04. Katong Peoples Complex, 112 E Coast Rd

TAIWAN National Distributor Taipei Tartu Electronics Chung Ching S Rd

THAILAND Bangkok Future Land Ltd 496-502 Amann Plaza 3rd Floor, Ploenchit Rd

WEST GERMANY National Distributor 6 Frankfurt/M, 56 Audio International Gonzenheimer Str 2b

PRCI4f3URfl. AUDIO NOISE SUPPRESSOR

TM chaise of recormni) industry archives and collectors around the world Throe processera for reduction of transient and steady state noises Plus special features for optimum reproductron of old records lateral or vertical

Model 32311: $2.650 Write for literature to P 0 Box 335, (keen. NY USA 13214-0335 Tel 13151472-5644

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Why not have it all? Remote control—beautiful mahogany finish— compact size in a fully integrated system of elec-tronics that removes the guesswork and gives the ultimate in sonic performance and compatibility. MEITNER—preamps, amplifiers, translinks, inter-connects, speaker wire, CD players, turntables, and next—a tuner.

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ARIA exists to enrich music lovers' aesthetic and emotional lives. Advances in audio art have

vastly increased our ability to reveal in recorded performances the nuances of live music.

Call Joseph Del Priore ARIA EVENINGS & WEEKENDS RD 1 Box 310

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AUDIO MART Rates: Private, 50 cents per word, no minimum; Commercial, $1.25 per word, $45 minimum per insertion. Multiple insertions must be prepaid; we do not bill for Audio Mart. MC and Visa accepted; send card number and expiration date with ad. Send classified ads to: Stereophile, Classified Ad Department, PO. Box 5529, Santa Fe, NM 87502. Ads must be received for Volume 11, No. 4 by February 8, 1988; for Volume 11, No. 5 by March 7, 1988.

FOR SALE

FREE HIGH-END KIT CATALOG. Power amplifiers, preamps (tube/ic/JFET), active crossovers (tube/ic). Resista ± I% MF Resistors, Gold RCA connectors, Mogarni cables. Old Colony Sound, Box 243S, Peter-borough, NH 03458.

ELECTRON TUBE SALE: Matched pairs, 12AX7, 12BH', 6FQ7, 6L6GC, EL34, KT-88, 6550A. 4000 types stocked, since 1947. GE, Amperc:x, Telefunken. Gold Lion (original), Sylvania. Military grade, same-day shipping. Write or call for prices: ARS Electronics, 110 DeCelis PI., PO Box '323-Dept SE Van Nuie, CA 91406. In California, (800)422-427 Outside California, (800)422-4250.

AUDIOPHILE ALBUMS!! Fourth annual Christmas sale!! Mobile Fidelity, Sheffield, Reference Recordings, Chesky, Nautilus, Wilson Audio; UHQRs, collections, etc. Sound Advice, 821$ Grand, Kansas City MO 64114. (816)361-2-13. Fantastic new releases from Chesky, Reference, and the ultimate gift, the Sheffield box from Moscow.

THE FINEST EQL1PMF:NT EXPERT ADVICE, outstand-ing prices! Apogee, Krell. SOTA, Maplenoll, Klyne,

Quad, Eminent Technology. Meitner, Quicksilver, Lazarus, VPI. Sonographe, Merlin, B&K, Audible Il-lusions, Monster Cable, more! Virtually all cartridge and cable lines! Free newsletter. Galen Cam! Audio, (512)494-3551.

I.Ps SOUND GREAT when treated with Gruv-Glide. Reduce wear and static, improve tracking. See Audio Cheapskate review December 1986. $21.95 per kit.

Check or MO to Rozoil Lubricant Ca, Box 19003, Las Vegas, NV 89132.

READ THE ADVERTISEMENTS BANNED by Hi-Fi Neuw & Record Review. Freedom of the Press denied to advertisers. SI bill for latest catalog of bargain offers. Mayware Ltd., PO Box 58. Edgware. Middx.. England.

CANADA-WIDE COMPACT DISC MAIL-ORDER ser-vice. Mobile. Pro Arte, Sheffield, Ulan:, and more! Send S5 for 10,000+ CD catalog. Write: Discs & Dais. Box 2352, 4- Simcoe St. South Oshawa, Ontario Lill "1W

FIND OUT WHY AUDIO CONCEPTS INC. is con-sidered headquarters for high-end speaker kits. acoustic foam, drivers, capacitors, and much more! Call toll-free, (800)346-9183. 1631 Caledonia St.. LaCmsse, WI 54603.

NEW DEALER FOR NESTOROVIC LABS! Audition thru Klyne. Well-Tempered, Monster system. Alpha One High Fidelity 5016 N. 7bpelo nerm Wilmington. DE 19808. Call or write for appointment. Tel. (302)-38-3681. TELEX 910240-'88. FAX 3022392904

STACKED QUAD ELECTROSTATICS (1981) with black anodized aluminum stands, properly designed and machined at an absurd expense; exquisite hi-tech in-dustrial design. Speakers are flawless with less than 200 hours use. I promise there are no finer examples extant. Includes Fulton Golds and X-Terminators. 52600. (213)4'5-9369 after 4:30 PST

FOR SALE: B&K 202+ POWER AMPLIFIER, 200 w/ch, 5400. (319)393-82 -'9, best time 10am-noon CST

ONE PAIR LINN DMS ISOBARIK SPEAKERS, S roo. I Threshold Stasis Model S/500-2, 81900. Contact Ralph Pisani, (201)991-6311, between 4 & 10pin.

WANTED: McINTOSH, MARANTZ, AUDIO RE-

SEARCH, Dynaco, Levinson, Krell, Conrad-Johnson, Counterpoint, Linn, Altec, JBL, Tannoy, EV, Quad, etc. Tube and solid state, prramps, amplifiers, tuners, speakers. (-73)'28-4343. Maury Corb, 11122 Atur1L Houston, TX "096.

VECTOR ELECTRONICS: TOP QUALITY, competitive prices. B&K components, amps, piramps; Cramolin; Goldbug cartridges; Kimber Kahle; Kevek speakers; Michell Gyrodec turntable; Namiki AC direction finder; Orsonic side force checker; Sheffield Lab; Sonex; Technics stylus force gauge; Zeta tonearm. Tubes: Amperex 6DJ8/ECC88, GE 6550A/KT88 Mprs, India 12AX7A/ECC83, Visa/MC/Amex. Please call

(503)233-2603. Portland, OR.

RCA I.SC SHADED DOGS—N1ERCURIES 90,000. Free list. Send SASE. PJE 160 Walnut St., Nutley, NJ 0'110.

BELLES 400-A AMP, $1050; NYAL Minuet in A pre-amp, $550; excellent combination for driving all Apo-gees. Purchased 11:87, mint. Call Ezra, (803)32"-4849 anytime.

AUDIO CLASSICS BUYS-SELLS-TRADES McIntosh, Mar.mtz (tube), Conrad-Johnson, Audio Research. and other precision audio components. See our monthly list at the beginning of Audio Magazine's classifieds. Free catalogue. 8am-5pm EST Mon.-Fri. POR ros. Wallort, NV 13856. (60'065-'200

THE BEST RECORD RACK IN AMERICA. Stackable, portable oak units hold I.Ps. CDs. and tapes. Free mail-order brochure (please mention Stereophile). Per Madsen Design, (415)928-4509, PO Bar 330101. San Francisco, CA 94133.

SIDEREALKAP. The SiderealKap was designed from its inception to be the finest-sounding capacitor available for audio today. Find out what the music-lover's capacitor doesn't sound like. Call (619)-22- — 0- or write to Sidereal Akustic. 1969 Outrigger Way Oceanside, CA 92054. Free literature and information upon request. Dealer inquiries invited.


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CARRY DISC .... '15.95 - 2/'29.00 (holds 14 CD's without 'ewe) boxes)

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For a full line brochure send $500 to STAX Kogyo, Inc., 940 E Dominguez St Carson, CA 90746


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AIX:OM MODIFICATIONS FROM DRH. We use FET technology and proprietary circuit topology to transform your GFA-555. 545, or 535 into a stunning example of musical transparency. Our design allows the listener to hear through to the heart and soul of the music and move closer to the elusive qualities of the live performance. Ask about our money-back guarantee! Also available, fully modified (.FA-555s. 5995. Free 10-day trial available. Call or write DR!!. 22'5 East Bay Dr, #1205C, Clearwater FL 34624. (813)536-2904.

AUDIO DESIGNS SPECIALIZES in the finest previous-ly owned audio components plus custom termination by Esoteric Audio. Call or write, 5115 Red Fox, Brighton, MI 48116. Phone (313)229-5191.

CELESTION SL 6000 WOOFERS—Mod Squaded, 51690; Well-Tempered TT/arm/MCIO, sealed, $1825; Ampel 351-2, 51100; Grado TT/arm, $1"5. Wanted: B&O 200 mie. Rich, (203)824-5310.

SHADED DOG RCAs. Identify the great recordings. Send for latest-edition "Golden Era of RCA Records" with complete listing of early stereo classics, sound evaluations, meaning of labels-numbers. 34p of info for 5101. Mitchell, Box 843, Kingsport, TN 3'662.

McINTOSH MC-2205, $1150; MR-'8, $850; C-28, $3'5; MR-", 5275; MR-65, 50; MQ-102, $60. Marantz 1200 amp. 5250; 2130 tuner W scope, S400; 150 tuner W scope, 8375; 120 tuner W scope, $350. Scott 130 prramp, 575; 333 tuner, 51(10; LT-I0 tuner, $45; LC-2I pimp, $40; 222D amp, MOO; 330C tuner, $45; Dyna PAS, OM ST-35, $65; 2 ST-70, $125 cc.; QD-1, $25; EICO ST-40, $40; HFT-92 tuner, $35; HF-87 amp. 5'5; HET-92 KIT tuner. $85; HF-86 amp KIT, $85. Knight preamp, $35 tube; Basic amp tube, 565; Fisher Pr. 70A amp tube, $125; X101B amp, $45 tube; Altec 353A amp, $45 tube; CJ PV-2 preamp, $350; White Series 400 Vs -Octave Equalizers, pr. 51250; Accuphase T-100 tuner, $300. Thorens

TD-147 TT, $350; pr AR-4X speakers, $100. McIn-tosh C-11, $250; MA-6100, $450; 3 SCR-2. 555 cc.; Dyna pr. Mark 4, $125. Wanted REL Precedent FM tunet/P Evans, 8" Bettina Ct. #643, Houston, 7X "024. ('13)973-9480.

MUSIC LOVERS ONLY! Apogee, Aragon, Audioquest, Aural Symphonies, Classe, Distech, DMN, Epos, Han-son, JPW, Klyne, Mission Cyrus, Mod Squad, QED, Straight Wire, Sumo, Target, van den Hul, and more! Performance Systems, (313)342-24'5, ask for Gil.

DB SYSTEMS AUDIOPHILE ACCESSORIES include: DBP-2J/5 Passive Switchbox, 569.95; DBP-10 Phono Alignment Protractor, $24.95; DBP-16(2) 12dB In-put Attenuators. $12.95 (custom values $15.95); DBP-SC Souther Clever Clamp, $10; New DBP-17(2)Phono Couplers, gold-plated female to female pair, 512.95. Under $45, handling 52.50. DB Systems, Main St., Rindge, NH 03461. (603)899-5121.

WS'. BEATLES THE COLLECTION No. 592—un-played, free shipping, $885. Write to Heinz Theis, Kreuzbeck 421,6239 Eppstetn 4. West Germany

LINN VALHAI.LA, 5475; Mod Squad ITOK, $450; Counterpoint SA3.1, 5475; Nitty Gritty 3.5, 5275; VMPS Tower Ils, new in box, $800. Call ('16)2'1-4943 (Rochester NY).


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CHAPMAN T-9 SPEAKERS. Custom pair, mint, beautiful, accurate, impressive. Massive 170Ib enclosure! These speakers challenge systems at 2 to 4 times cost. Made in USA and guaranteed. $2200. (2/3)939- '299, Mitch.

THE AUDIO CRITIC IS BACK! After an absence of more than six and a half years, the toughe.t, most original, and most serious critical journal in audio is back in business again. The Fall 1987 issue of The Audio Critic discloses surprising information, unavailable elsewhere, on amplifiers, phono tech-nology, speakers, etc. The Winter 1987-88 issue, heavy on speakers and CD players, is coming soon. Subscriptions are now being taken for four issues a year, starting with No. 10 (Fall 1987). Send $22 (no Canadian dollars), $10 extra for overseas delivery to The Audio Criti Box 392, Bronxville, NY 10708,

SOLID-CORE INTERCONNECTS & SPEAKER CABLES remove many of the veils clouding your music. Interconnects: Wonder soldered, gold-plated RCA plugs. 1-meter pair, $58. Speaker cables: Wonder soldered ends fit amps and speakers without bananas. $1.50 per foot. Free shipping. RMS Stereo, RD#.2 Box 120A, M dsville, WV 26041. (304)843-1761.

AUDIO ABODE, where music and technology live in harmony, features equipment by Audioquest, Aural Symphonies, B&K, BEL, ClearAudio, Convergent Audio Technology, Eminent Technology, Maplenoll, Magnum Dynalab, Melos, MFA, Morrison, Quicksilver, Reference Recordings, Souther, Straight Wire, Super-phon, VPI, and others. Dallas; TX. (214)369-2092.

MERRILL "HEIRLOOM" TURNTABLE, featuring acrylic lead platter, periphery clamping ring, fluid damped motor, constant resonance tuning system, and screw-down center clamp. Undegmund Sound, 2125 Central Ave., Memphis, TN 38104. (901) 2-2-1410.

MCIN-IDSH 225 AMPLIFIER, Maranta 7 preamplifier, Altec Lansing 605A speakers with enclosures, Rekokut N33H turntable, Fisher 20013 FM tuner. All original equipment, excellent condition. Best offers Call even-ings. (-18)526-3296.


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MERRILL MODS. AR (all): acrylic lead outer platter with clamping ring, $135; acrylic subchassis, $95; replacement motor, $65; spindle, $25; spring kit, $8; and more. Linn: acrylic lead outer platter with clamp-ing ring, $135; acrylic arm board, $48. Underground Sound, 2125 Central Ave., Memphis, TN 38104. (901)272-1275.

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AUDIOPHILES. AUDITION JSE INFINITE SLOPE loudspeakers on our 30-day no-risk auditioning pro-gram. Authorized JSE, Fried, Spectrum, Counterpoint, Superphon, B&K, Kinergetics, Haller, Magnum Dynalab, Thorens, Audioquest, Parasound, Apature dealers. Est. 1959. Sound Unlimited. 169 Church St., Bristol, CT 06010. (203)584-0131. We pay shipping.

I YAMAHA CT-7000N, $485; I Oracle Delphi MKII, S550; I Oracle Premier MKII (w/Finale arm), 51450; I Em Tec tonearm w/o pump. 5100: I pair MIT Shotgun Music Hoses. 20' per side, 51100; I Klyne SK I-A head amp. $200; 1 Carnegie One cartridge (virgin), 5550; I Syrinx PU-3 arm, 5350. Phone (509)545-422" weekdays, (509)545-4061 other Please ask for fina Wee.


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CROSSOVER: THE DUET PASSIVE/ACTIVE BIAMP-ING crossover. Passive high end with minimal color-ation, 6dB/octave. Elegant low end, choice of slopes: conventional 18dB/octave; transitional 6-18 dB/oc-tave for high-performance subwoofers such as Cogan-Hall's Contrabass. Audiophile quality: Sidereal caps, gold-plated connectors, van den Hul wiring, ten-turn wire-wound pots. Several crossover frequencies, stereo or summed (mono) available. $575 stereo, $450 mono. At Cogan-Hall dealers or write or call Cogan-HaU Instruments, Inc, 1609 )bung St., Cincinnati, OH 45210. (513)421-1055.

LINN, SOTA OWNERS: 'THE KEYBOARD replace-ment tonearm mounting board is guaranteed to outperform all other tonearm boards for Linn LP-12 and all SOTA turntables. Musicality, transparency enhanced throughout range. Construction: handsome black acrylic, hardwood ply, phenolic resin laminated under high pressure. $88 blank; tonearm drilling available. At Cogan-Hall dealers or write or call Cogan-Hall Instruments, Inc, 1609 }bung St., Cin-cinnati, OH 45210.

FREI)ERICK, MD. Audiophiles and beer budgets coex-ist with B&K electronics. Tube prramp from %'TI.. for S550. Extended highs, deep bass, analytical, dynamic from tubes! VIL has redefined tube sound limita-tions!! Apaturr, Ariston, Audioquest. Belles, Forte. Maplenoll, Musical Concepts, ProAc, Straight Wire & more. Audio Ceu, (300695-'083.

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Stereophile, February 1988 20-

KISEKI PURPLE HEART SAPPHIRE MC. "The Sweet One." Unmounted, brand new in box, 51100. Call Harrison, (206)588-3882, 9-5 PST M-F, 9-1 Sat.

CD, PREAMP MODS—The ultimate in mods for your Cl) player or preamp. DC Servo stereo module MI, 550. Cl) Drive is a DC Servo module with 6dli gain, 575. FET ultra-high slew rate op-amps OM. sonically and electrically superior to NE5535. Tube-like sound for S15/pr. Also, esoteric preamp parts—torroids. conductive plastic pots, etc. Call or write for catalog. Soloist Audio, 331 Balk, S.A., TX "8209. (512)229-0-12. MC/Visa.

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ELITE MUSIC SYSTEMS. %Vr specialize in purist audio systems for the true music lover. Featuring 'TL tubed electronics, Soundlah electrostats, Oracle turntables, Alphason toneanns, Cleaniudio and Garrot cartridges. Also Kinetgetics CD player.; and subwoofax, Symdcx, Merlin, and Princeton Acoustics speakers. Cables by Cardas, Audioquest, Straight Wire, and Randall Research. 1001 Versailles Cl., Maitland, FL 32'51. (305)629- 9/61 eves

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THE STEREOPHILE ADVERTISING STANDARDS Advertising published in Stereophile is accepted on the premise that the merchandise and services as offered are accurately described, and are available to customers at the advertised price Advertising that does not conform to these standards, or that is deceptive or misleading is never 'glowingly accepted If any Stereophile reader encounters noncompliance with these standards please write Nelson & Associates, 62 Wendover, Rd., Yonkers, NY 10705.

ADVERTISER INDEX

A & S Speakers 207 MFA Systems 184 Absolute Audio 190 Magnepan 86 Adcom 50-51 Magnum Dynalab 180 Arcici 178 Maplenoll 182 Aria 198 Mart Publications 207 Artech Electronics 168 Martin Logan 32 Audio Advisor, Inc 140, 184, 204 May Audio Marketing 84 Audio Breakthroughs 186 McIntosh 44 Audio By John Dudley 198 Meitner 24 Audio Enthusiast 205 Meridian 56 Audio Nexus 202 Mod Squad 168 Audio Research Corporation 14 Monitor Audio 28 Audio Rhapsody 204 Monster Cable 58 Audio Stream 69 Music & Sound 200 Audio Today 60 Music by Design 206 Audio Vision 188 Music by the Sea 188 Audio Visions 190 Musical Concepts 172 Audio Workshop 204 Naim 138 Audioquest 26 Natural Sound 64 Aural Symphonics 180 Nelson-Reed Loudspeakers 202 B & K Components Inside back cover Nitty Gritty 20 B & W Loudspeakers 54 Onkyo Back cover Boulder Amplifiers 167 Optimal Enchantment 160 British Fidelity 80 Orpheus Loudspeakers 200 CF. Audio 203 Ortofon 82 CSA Audio 206 Packburn Electronics 197 California Audio Labs 182 Parasound 72 Cello 162 Pioneer 10-11 Chadwick Modifications 197 Preston Trail Audio 206 Cochran, Don 6 Professional Audio Consultants 68 Cogan-Hall Instruments 59 Professional Systems Engineering 200 Conrad-Johnson Design Inside front cover Rotel 46 Crutchfield Corporation 144 Rowland Research 18 Custom Electronics 202 SOTA 201 Custom Woodwork & Design 68 Select Sound 192 D'Ascanio Audio 178 Siefert Research 172 Dbx 74 Sight and Sound 196 Definitive Hi -Fi 196 Sixth Avenue Electronics 148 Discrete Technology 9 Sound By Singer 154 Eminent Technology 132 Sounding Board 173 Esoteric Audio 42 Speaker Builder 208 Esoteric Ear 146 Speaker Shop 203 Euphonic Technology 134 Stax 200 Gala Sound 152 Stereo Exchange 76-77 Gasworks 208 Stereo Shoppe 204 Gold Aero 63 Straight Wire 128 Christopher Hansen Ltd. 156 Sumiko 170 Havens & Hardesty 205 Superphon 202 Hi Fi Answers 164 Take 5 194 Hi Fi News & Record Review 166 Teac of America 30 High End Audio 192 The Sound Concept 186 High End Hi -Fi Show 66 Threshold Corporation 36 Janis 201 Upscale Audio 158 Kimber Kable 197 Vampire 38 Luxman 40 Vandersteen Audio 170 Lyle Cartridges 206 Wheaton Music 207 Lyric Hi -Fi Inc. 150 Woodbridge Stereo Center 194


THE FINAL WORD Recently, while overseeing the production of the January issue of Stereopbile at our new printer in southern Florida, I was privileged to spend an afternoon with Peter McGrath of Audiofon records and Sound Components high-end salon. In a word, Peter had a mission: to demonstrate the clear inferiority of digital tape as a storage medium and CD as a high-fidelity vehicle for bringing the sound of the master tape into your home.

Let me make one thing clear: Peter McGrath is not anti-CD. He has welcomed the upsurge in interest that has accompanied the success of CD, and it is certain that Audiofon depends mightily on CD for its income There has been little enough interest in LP sales that, when Audiofon arranged for transfer of their Earl Wild in Concert at Carnegie Hall (1981) to CD, they did not go to the expense of rereleasing the LP, no longer available Peter's primary goal was to correct what he felt to be a shameful lack of ongoing critical examination by the supposed defenders of the faith: the subjec-tive-review magazines.

So, who cares? You've heard all this before. That may be, but there bas been a growing lack of critical focus on CD (though CDs have also been getting much better), and McGrath had something to offer I'd never heard before: direct comparison of analog master tape, CD made from the analog master tape, and LP made from the analog master tape.

I'll be the first to admit that there are many more comparisons that could be made in an-alyzing the relative effectiveness of CD and LP as what I'll call "transfer media" (to be differen-tiated from basic storage media). Different digital recorders, analog recorders, LP players, CD players, microphone combinations, etc. Nevertheless, the comparisons I did at Peter's

sound room in Coral Gables, listening to sev-eral of McGrath's actual master tapes played on his StellaVox, compared with his LPs played on a Goldmund Reference, and also compared with his CDs played on an Accuphase DP-70, were valid. It told me whether there were losses or additions made by the transfer media, and what their nature was.

First, LP Even on this super high-end system —in addition to the Goldmund 'table, there

was a Goldmund cartridge a prototype Levin-son No.26 preamp, Levinson cables and ampli-fication, and Duntech Sovereign speakers—LP was a significant step down from the master tape Tonally, there was not much discrepancy, but a kind of brightness and "tang" character-istic of live strings and real voices that had been captured on ;he tape was notably muted on the LP. The texture of instruments was there but less than on the master, and the hall ambience was reduced, though still evident. Depending on the specific comparison, I gave LP a score of 88 to 92, compared with 100 for the master tape. CD, though, was a shock, even for this sea-

soned sceptic. Surprisingly, I heard almost none of the classic symptoms of so-called digititis: no harshness, very little extra bright-ness, and no screechy strings. Instead, I heard a dramatic loss of information: on a string tone that originally had real texture there was simply much less to it; the string had been simplified. Hall ambience was lessened (though not totally absent), and the sense of air surrounding in-dividual instruments and voices—their indi-vidual ambiences—was almost totally absent. Compared with the master, I gave the CD playback about an 80.

In none of the examples I heard were there gross aberrations; had LP or CD been pre-

sented as the original—which is our typical listening situation—I wouldn't have thought. they were bad at all. I would be most interested to make other

comparisons of this kind, happily submitting to the same audition from someone with a pro-digital point to prove I also want others from Stereopbile, notably JGH, to hear the comparisons at Peter McGrath's, just to make sure I'm not pulling all this up out of my own anti-digital imagination. Does it all amount to a hill of beans, given

the direction of the market re CD vs LP? Per-haps not—but it does indicate that digital systems have a long way to go if the goals of high fidelity are to advance. This is something we must not lose sight of.


"A runaway bargain and a stellar performer." H! F! HERETIC FALL 86

"B&X products are among the finest values on the market today."

"...one of the most musical power amps on the market...sounds better than many other amps selling for twice the price."

STEREOPHILE VOL 8, NO 8, JAN 86

'lit 1'04 •ANts eel)

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COMPONENTS.LTD POWER AMPJFIER Ste:

B() PRE-AMPLIFIERS AND POWER AMPLIFIERS

Available from selected dealers. Write or call for complete specifications:

B & K Components, Ltd., 1971 Abbott Road Lackawanna, NY 14218 .1-800-543-5252 (NY: 1-716-822-8488)

THE ONKYO

INTEGRA T-9090MK II Our award winning tuner gets even better.

When an FM tuner is as critically acclaimed as was Onkyo's original T-9090, you'd think there was no room for improvement.

Onkyo engineers thought differently.

Our new T-9090MK II featurs a redesigned front end that substantially increases channel selectivity-95dB for alternate channels, 80dB for adjacent. A more sophisticated APR tuning system has been

created that provides user fixed programming of specific reception modes (Local/DX, IF wide/narrow/super-narrow, high blend, antenna A/B) for specific stations, with stability insured by separate, dedicated power supplies for each function. Dual antenna capability and FM cable

compatibility are built-in, and the entire tuner can be controlled by the full function, 31 key, wireless remote.

Even the best can get better. Just listen to the Onkyo Integra T-9090MK II.

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Artistry in Sound

ONlir"'à 200 Williams Drive, Ramsey, N.J. 07446 • (201) 825-7950

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