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Westone 4R In-ear Headphone Sweepstakes
According to the company:
The Quad-Driver Westone 4R-Series with durable and removable EPIC cable take your listening experience to an entirely different level. Four symmetrically balanced armature drivers engineered into an advanced three-way crossover network deliver breathtaking clarity, realism, and imaging. Left and right earpiece responses are tested by each driver pack and matched to an extraordinarily tight +/- 2dB tolerance, delivering unparalleled balance and accuracy of sound-stage reproduction.The 4Rs are made for high-performance listening through personal audio devices such as an iPod, media player, computer, game console, and headphone amplifier. 50+ years experience with in-ear applications has yielded a low-profile, lightweight, universal earpiece which delivers maximum comfort and in-ear coupling for dynamic transfer of sound.
4R-Series earphones ship with Westone’s new Monitor Vault. Designed specifically for transporting high-end earphones and manufactured in Colorado of a high-impact polymer, it’s the perfect size for travel and storage. Each Monitor Vault features a protective foam interior and weather resistant design.
To enter the sweepstakes, all you need is an account on this website. If you don't already have one, click on the link labeled "register" at the bottom of this announcement or "Create new account" in the right column (under the ads). Then, enter a username and a valid e-mail address, and click on the "Create new account" button. A message will be automatically sent to the e-mail address you specified, which will include a link to activate the account.
The final step (and only step for those who already have an account) is to log in and leave a comment right here on this announcement—any comment will do, as long as it's not profane or spam. Then, when the sweepstakes closes, a lucky commenter will be chosen at random to receive the prize. So post a comment, and good luck!
For complete sweepstakes rules, click here.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Maria Schneider’s Winter Morning Walks
Now, with Winter Morning Walks, Schneider leaps to still loftier terrain, fusing her jazz sensibility with classical idioms, while staying true to both. Her music is played by chamber orchestras (alternating between the Austrian and St. Paul), set to the poetry of Ted Kooser and Carlos Drummond, whose words are sung by Dawn Upshaw.
This is gorgeous music. There are shards and strands of Copland, Sondheim, Barber, and Ives, though the sound is distinctively Schneider, who is ever-evolving into a composer of—beyond genre—Great American Music. And she has eked sympatico responses from the orchestras. (The Austrians, who play on the album’s first part, which feature Kooser’s poems, are augmented by three of the longest-serving musicians from Schneider’s Jazz Orchestra: pianist Frank Kimbrough, reedman Scott Robinson, and bassist Jay Anderson.)
It’s also a gorgeous recording, engineered by Tim Martyn at 24/96 with Grace preamps and A/D converters. Upshaw was covered by a Neumann microphone, the orchestras by Schoeps mikes in the main, with several spot mikes scattered here and there, though they were used only rarely and lightly.
As with all Maria Schneider’s albums, this CD is available only from her website (MariaSchneider.com) or the site of her label, ArtistShare.com.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Aidan Baker: On Music, Sound, and Already Drowning
Aidan Baker. Photos: Leah Buckareff.
Aidan Baker’s Already Drowning is our “Recording of the Month” for June 2013. In preparation for our review, I asked Baker a few questions about the album. We discussed literary and musical influences, the songwriting and recording process, and the importance of sound.—SM
Stephen Mejias: The liner notes state that “lyrical conceits” were “gleaned from various folktales.” I haven’t read any of the books or stories mentioned in the liner notes. Can you tell me whether specific songs were inspired by specific books? If so, how?
Aidan Baker: Several of the books I mentioned are based on or contain fairytale or folktale elements and, as such, are something of a thematic influence on the album as a whole, rather than to specific songs. Also, the overlying conceit of “drowning” is a common theme within Canadian literature, particularly the “drowned author” narrating from a submerged perspective, as in some of Hubert Acquin’s and Margaret Atwood’s work. The song “Tout Juste Sous La Surface, Je Guette” makes use of some imagery from Atwood’s poem “This Is A Photograph of Me.” That said, some of the songs do draw specific imagery from literary sources. For example: The Mélusine folktale is retold and reinterpreted in A.S. Byatt’s Possession; “Mein Zwilling, Mein Verlorener” makes use of some autobiographical detail in Philip K. Dick’s The Dark Haired Girl; and “Ice” uses imagery and plot details from Anna Kavan’s novel of the same name.
"The idea of intertextuality can be translated to music, particularly if one thinks of music, both making and listening, as a shared, collective, and interwoven experience."
SM: The press release states that the songs were inspired by “various myths and folktales about female water spirits.” I think that’s unusual and interesting subject matter. How did you become interested in these myths and folktales?
AB: My interest in folktales and fairytales largely arose from my studies in postmodern literature—writers like Angela Carter, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, or Donald Barthelme, to name some of my favorites, who use the fairytale to reference the intertextuality central to the postmodernist conceit that all texts throughout history (and the writers writing, the readers reading) interrelated and interwoven. That all sounds very academic—and I did study literature in college—but much of my interest comes down to a simple aesthetic appreciation of these writers’ works. It just happened that these stories of female water spirits randomly came up in a few different books I was reading all within a certain time period, and that sort of thematic synchronicity intrigued me. And I do think this idea of intertextuality can be translated to music, particularly if one thinks of music, both making and listening, as a shared, collective, and interwoven experience.
SM: Each song has a different guest vocalist. Can you tell me a bit about the songwriting process? Did you have a specific singer in mind for each song? How did you match the song with a specific singer? And what special qualities did each singer bring to her song?
AB: The lyrics were written first and then I wrote all the songs on acoustic guitar. These relatively simple guitar-based structures are central to all the songs, even if that might not be so readily apparent in the album’s finished form. I did have specific singers in mind for each track which was sometimes determined by the quality or timbre of their voice and how I thought it would fit with certain songs. Other times, it was more how the different voices flowed into one another within the context of the album. For example, Clara Engel and Carla Bozulich’s voices have a similar timbre, so I specifically wanted them to sing on the first and last tracks to open and close or bookend the album.
"Sound is the basis of my music."
SM: Can you tell me a bit about the recording process? Was there an overall goal for how you wanted the album to sound, or did you work on a more track-by-track basis? How important was it to maintain dynamic range and a sense of space? How important was it to maintain a sense of volume and impact? And what compromises were made in balancing these elements?
AB: I began the recording by laying down fairly basic guitar, bass, and drum parts which I then sent on to the respective singers to work on. I did write all the lyrics, but gave the singers free reign to edit and rearrange the words as needed to fit the songs. I generally tend to work on an album as a whole, rather than on a track-by-track basis, in order to give the album a sense of continuity both in sonic and thematic terms. This was a little more complicated with Already Drowning since I was working with other people, sometimes at a distance via filesharing, and because the songs themselves are quite different from each other. But while the songs might have a different character or feel, I wanted them to flow together and remain interconnected as a whole—a sequence of songs or a song-cycle—rather than an album made up of a piecemeal collection of songs. I tried to accomplish this through mood or ambiance, keeping the songs similarly slow and brooding and atmospheric, even as they might be loud or quiet, minimal or maximal, abstract or more structured. There are a lot of tracks and a lot of instruments on Already Drowning, so it was a challenge mixing everything so that each individual voice was properly represented while still maintaining the sense of give-and-take and dynamic range that the songs demanded. I also worked on the album over the course of a few years, in multiple locations and with various means of recording, so matching and mixing some of the differently recorded parts was equally challenging.
SM: There are aspects of the recording that sound very natural, and others that sound very unnatural. Was this intentional? It sounds as though the engineers have employed a technique referred to as “10 at 10” (ie, a 10dB boost at 10kHz) commonly used to add sparkle to cymbals and other brassy elements in a mix. In general, audiophile engineers would use this technique only sparingly, but it seems to have been used here throughout. Is that right, or am I mistaken?
[Recording engineer] James Plotkin: I don’t think I’ve ever put 10dB of 10kHz on anything I’ve ever worked on in my life. That seems like a really great way to make a recording painful and overly fatiguing at higher volumes and extended periods of listening. If anything, there was a good amount of high-frequency attenuation and general EQ balancing done during mastering. The mixes I received were heavily scooped, so a good deal of various midrange boost was needed for balance and enhancement of detail in that range.
"I do consider digital editing and manipulation improvisational, to a certain degree, in that chance and happenstance can play a part in the process of processing."
SM: Already Drowning was recorded at Commonwealth and Broken Spine Studios. Are these dedicated recording spaces, homes, or something else? How much of the album was recorded live and how much was overdubbed? Did the musicians and vocalists work together, or were files somehow traded back and forth? Roughly, how much of the music was improvised and how much was composed?
AB: Recording of the album began in late 2009 at Commonwealth Studios in Toronto, which is a private studio run by Jonathan Demers, with whom I’ve worked for many years, both as a recording engineer and a bandmate. Jonathan engineered the drums and some of the guitar parts for the basic structure of the songs which I sent to the respective singers to work on independently. The string and woodwind parts, provided respectively by Laura Bates (violin), Nick Storring (cello), and Laura Rodie (alto and soprano saxophone), were also recorded at Commonwealth, arranged and engineered by myself. Most of the singers sent me their contributions via online filesharing but Clara’s vocals were recorded at Commonwealth.
Over the course of the next two years, I continued working on these basic structures, fleshing them out with additional electric guitar tracks—both doubling the original basic guitar patterns and creating more abstract, atmospheric guitar textures—and adding various instrumental tracks as I was able, either performed by myself (piano, trombone, flute, some field recordings) or others, such as Carl Pace (trumpet), and my partner in my duo project Nadja, Leah Buckareff (accordion). This was all nominally recorded under the Broken Spine moniker, but there isn’t really any fixed location for Broken Spine Studios. It is my personal recording setup, but as a touring musician, it can be anywhere I am able to set up my laptop and some mics. Both vocal contributions from Liz Hysen and Joanna Kupnicka were done with this mobile setup, in Toronto and Berlin respectively.
Since I played most of the instruments on this record myself, none of the takes are really live. And while most of the songs were laid down straight with multiple overdubs, tracks like “Mélusine” or “Lorelei” were more crafted, edited and processed, and largely constructed digitally in Cubase on my laptop.
The line between composition and improvisation is fairly blurred with my music, but the majority of this album is composed. Improvisation comes into play more with the atmospheric and textural elements—although I do consider digital editing and manipulation improvisational, to a certain degree, in that chance and happenstance can play a part in the process of processing.
SM: Listening to your work, it’s easy to hear a deep interest in, and respect for, sound. Why is sound important to you?
AB: Sound is the basis of my music. My compositions are largely based on the layering of sounds and textures, drones and atmospheres, generally produced entirely by electric guitar, either effected electronically or played with alternate/prepared techniques. Already Drowning is somewhat anomalous in my catalog, as it is considerably more structured and song-oriented than a large amount of my work, but that idea of texture and drone is still prevalent and integral to establishing and maintaining the atmosphere and mood of the album.
SM: Thanks very much, Aidan. This has been a pleasure.
Aidan Baker’s Already Drowning is available now from Gizeh Records or, in the US, from Forced Exposure. You can choose from limited-edition 180gm LP (300 copies), CD, or digital download (FLAC, ALAC, or MP3). All LP orders also include an immediate download, so you can have your vinyl and stream it, too.
The album is also available, for stream or purchase, at Aidan Baker’s Bandcamp page, home to a vast selection of the artist's work.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Roy Gandy: 40 Years of Reganomics
As Rega Research plans to celebrate its 40th anniversary, Gandy has good reason to feel that way. Things have never looked better for the company he founded in June 1973 and still owns. Rega is a major beneficiary of what we still must call the vinyl revival, though that's only part of the story.
Rega began with the now-collectable Planet turntable, then got established with its earliest glass-platter decks, the Planar 2 (1975) and Planar 3 (1977). Then, in 1983, came the groundbreaking RB300 tonearm, surely the most successful speciality audio product in history. Including all variations and OEM versions, sales of the RB300 now amount to well over 400,000 units.
In 1988, Rega began making its own cartridges. Loudspeakers and amplifiers followed in the early 1990s, their first CD player was launched in 1996, and Rega became a whole-system manufacturer.
A few years ago, Gandy would have told you that turntables steadily accounted for 40% of Rega's turnover. "It's about 50% now," he says. "Everything else is growing, but turntables are growing more. We've got to keep it in perspective. It's a niche market. I don't believe that turntables will ever become a mass-market product in the way that they were in the 1960s, and I can't even say that it would be nice if they did. But it's a hugely growing niche market, a small market of which we're a large part. And that's a wonderful situation to be in.
"It's like any marketing situation—you could look back and say why it happened, and say that you planned it! We didn't plan it, we didn't predict that vinyl would come back—or, rather, that it would start to grow at about 10% a year. But after a few years we could see that this might continue, and that, commercially, it was more sensible to invest in turntable production than it was to invest in CD production.
"Then the vinyl growth exploded, and one year it actually doubled. We had orders for twice the amount we were making. At that point, we thought, this is where we invest. Don't just carry on making what we're making, even though we've got demand for it. We've got all these lovely ideas, we've got a design department, we've got the people. Everything jelled!"
Behind the scenes, Gandy and his colleagues began to develop a no-holds-barred turntable, a concept design with no cost constraints. It would become the test bed for an entire new range of models. Gandy's philosophy of turntable engineering had never changed, but now he could take it to its logical conclusion.
"We went to extremes on our theories. Talking about stiffness and bracing and lightness, we made the lightest possible chassis with the stiffest possible brace, with money not being any object at all. Even though we have the ideas and we're engineers, and we've researched, you need things to substantiate or approve or agree with what you believe."
The main chassis component is a carbon-fiber molding, with ceramic braces forming the most rigid possible beam to link the platter bearing and arm mounting. "This is from a Formula 1 supplier. They make things like gearbox casings for Formula 1 cars. They make bombproof mini-buildings and vehicles for the Ministry of Defense, and they use glass fiber and carbon fiber to create that impact resistance. They put that technology into this part. And they were brilliant. Because they understood, because they were real engineers. It didn't take more than 10 minutes for us to explain the concepts, and then they were putting in their own ideas and helping us.
"There are joints, if you like, creating a beam. And if there's any tension in those, it creates a problem—any tension in anything creates a natural frequency. But they've been able to design the molding so that everything is totally relaxed. There's no compression in the mold. And just their understanding of that, and why, allowed them to put input into the product for us."
Gandy finds this kind of understanding lacking in the hi-fi world. "I've never met anybody in this industry that I can share ideas with. The turntable is a whole. The cartridge, and the arm, and the turntable itself are all one measuring machine, that's the way I like to look at it, and it measures vibration. You can't make it perfect. There's no such thing, in life or engineering. But you design the compromises to get the closest to perfection in a number of conflicting engineering parameters, and that's it. That's a turntable: a series of real-world engineering compromises. Not hocus-pocus hi-fi ideas of 'listen to it, see what it does.' That vibration you're trying to measure doesn't actually exist until the platter is rotating. And that rotational energy comes from the motor, which is part of the turntable—or from the mains, if you take it far enough! You're into lots of little interlinking chickens-and-eggs, or circular energy routes.
"The obvious conclusion is that the energy seems to come from the record. But if you've got a record in your hand, it contains zero energy. Once it's rotated, there is still no potential energy in that record. But as soon as a stylus is put into the groove and the stylus starts moving, there is energy. It comes from rotation, it comes from the motor, it comes from the electrical supply. That's why the mains supply can have an effect."
Although the RP3 and RP6 turntables—and, above all, the new, "skeletal" RP8 and RP10—are most directly linked to the "optimum" research prototype, the first model to benefit from Rega's new investment in turntables was the budget RP1. "The RP1 came about through us being asked to make OEM turntables for different companies. We don't see ourselves as a hi-fi manufacturer, really. We see ourselves as a precision-engineering manufacturing company, and we're happy to make a product for someone else, provided that what we can make fits in with their requirements. It's been typically about 15% of Rega's turnover.
"However, as soon as another company gets involved, they have their own ideas, and it becomes a matter of, 'How much are we willing to compromise our ideas to suit what they want?' We made a small range of OEM turntables with various differences, none of which we were very happy with, although they suited the people we made them for. That led us to think, 'Why don't we make one for ourselves?' And that was the RP1.
"There was one major and significant development in the RP1, and that was the platter itself. We invested in tooling to mold a platter from phenolic resin. And the confidence to do that—because you had to make a tool to make a part that you don't know whether it's going to work or not, and the tool costs ™40,000!—came from making our cost-no-object turntable.
"The rest of the turntable centered around the P3 and ideas that were well tested, but the improvement in quality vs cost came from this investment. I personally have been aware of phenolic resin's properties since I was 14. But this is something specific to turntable engineering, where you need very stiff, lightweight, cost-effective materials. We've always had phenolic skins on our turntable plinths.
"One reviewer said that the platter material is irrelevant because there's a mat placed between the platter and the record. And this is a highly qualified engineer! Our experience is that the platter needs to be very hard and very stiff, and phenolic resin met those criteria at a low cost."
People can be puzzled by the idea of the record merely resting on a felt mat, because so many manufacturers advocate clamping it to the platter. Could Gandy explain?
"It's, quite simply, surface area. If you have a weight of a kilogram and you want to glue it onto the ceiling, and the weight is 10cm long and a square centimeter in section, if you put glue on that square centimeter and stick it on the ceiling, however strong the glue is, it's likely to fall off after a period of time. If you make the area 10 square centimeters, the glue itself has to take only 1?10 of the load. You are spreading the stress over 10 times the area. With a turntable, the stress on a rotating record—and stress also relates to vibrational input—is spread over the whole area of the 12"-diameter LP. In that context, the mat, contacting it at many, many different points, is very stiff.
"If you're driving [the LP] against the force that's being rendered by a vibrating stylus, which is minuscule but real, there is really very, very little opposing force, and the whole area of the felt mat is a real, rigid connection, in a rotational direction. You've got a huge surface area opposing this very, very small force. Actually, the softer the mat, within limits, the more rigid it becomes, because it contacts more. It's a compromise, because if it gets too soft, it will start to form a nonrigid structure.
"But the platter itself is something entirely different. The platter is a flywheel. It's trying to slow down continuously because of wind resistance and bearing friction. It's a flywheel and a gyroscope at the same time, and its gyroscopic stability and its flywheel stability will depend on its accuracy and also on its stiffness, because lack of stiffness equates to lack of accuracy. Lack of stiffness allows waveform vibrations to generate around the platter. For an engineer, this is all very basic; it's not a complex concept at all. But in the hi-fi world it seems to become complex!
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Recording of June 2013: Already Drowning
Gizeh GZH 043CD/LP (CD/LP). 2013. Aidan Baker, prod.; Baker, Jonathan Demers, engs.; James Plotkin, mastering. ADD/AAA. TT: 54:54
Performance *****
Sonics **½
Though classically trained in flute and exceedingly capable on a wide range of other instruments, including drums, trombone, piano, and various electronics, Aidan Baker is best known for his work on acoustic and electric guitar. A perusal of his unofficial discography on Discogs.com reveals some 80 full-length albums, and another couple dozen singles, EPs, and compilation credits. Beyond merely prolific, Baker's recorded output is profound—and nearly impossible to chart. In 2012 alone he released at least six full-length albums: Document: Eurotour 2011, a live set with experimental guitarist Eric Quach; Smudging, a collection of space-rock instrumentals performed with his brother, Richard; Nihtes Niht, a collaboration with German drone act Troum; Variations on a Loop, comprising two extended pieces of processed and looped guitar; Origins & Evolutions, a set of four long ambient pieces for 15 guitars; and The Spectrum of Distraction, a 97-track, two-CD set of guitar-based pieces with contributions from 18 different drummers, designed to be played randomly.
But don't write off Baker as merely another noisemaker or prankster academic. It would be safer, or more accurate, to describe him as restless, thirsty, searching. He has also released albums of dark folk songs (Only Stories), shoegaze pop (Songs of Flowers & Skin), and deeply affecting jazz (Still Life). And while Baker is most commonly associated with the experimental scenes of Toronto, where he was born, and Berlin, where he currently resides, he's equally comfortable composing for and performing with contemporary classical ensembles as diverse as the Penderecki String Quartet, Sinfonietta Riga, and the Monday Morning Singers. He shows no signs of letting up: Already Drowning, his third release of this still-young year, is more coherent, thrilling, and purely beautiful than anything else he's accomplished so far.
The album was inspired by various fairytales about female water spirits, and comprises seven songs, each over six minutes long and each featuring a different female singer. Baker explained via e-mail: "My interest in fairytales largely arose from writers like Angela Carter, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, and Donald Barthelme, who use the fairytale to reference the intertextuality central to the postmodernist conceit that all texts throughout history (and the writers writing, the readers reading) are interrelated and interwoven."
The lyrics for Already Drowning were influenced by several books Baker had read over the course of a couple years, specifically A.S. Byatt's Possession, Philip K. Dick's The Dark Haired Girl, and Anna Kavan's Ice. As in Baker's life, the music on Already Drowning never quite stops: Each song gradually fades or gently morphs into the next, making it nearly impossible to divorce one from another. Variation comes in Baker's choices of instruments, his expert use of texture and dynamics, the distinct timbre of each song's voice, and the language in which his words are sung or read.
"Mein Zwilling, Mein Verlorener" combines carefully plucked acoustic guitar, decorative flute, and accordion, its bellows slowly and evenly pulled, to create a gently swaying backdrop for Joanna Kupnicka's voice, which recalls that of Nico in its melancholic depth and warmth but is softer, smoother, and far more comforting. This moves seamlessly into "Tout Juste Sous la Surface, Je Guette," a brooding and unhurried piece for guttural cello; weeping violin; several tracks of electric guitar plucked, scraped, banged, and otherwise skillfully manipulated; showers of thick, glistening distortion; and Geneviäve CastrÇe's voice, which vacillates as required between childlike and wraithlike, to best complement the song's crests and troughs. "30 Days/30 Nights" brings to mind the exquisite gloom of an Arab Strap song—cold, misty, and heavy with desperation; "MÇlusine" is more disconcerting, more volatile, with its multi-tracked reverse-echo guitar, skittering rhythms, and indistinct vocals; and the raunchy, lusty jazziness of "Ice" brings to mind Talk Talk's best and most seductive work, this due in part to Laura Rodie's alto and soprano saxophones, and in part to Liz Hysen's uncommonly sensual voice.
But Already Drowning's most memorable moments come from two vocalists. Clara Engel provides a characteristically powerful performance in the title track, and Carla Bozulich (Geraldine Fibbers, Evangelista) closes the set with a disturbing combination of clearly delivered lines and tape-processed groans, cries, and gibberish that recall scenes from The Exorcist. Both tracks benefit from Baker's trademark use of texture, tone, and drone; the depth, detail, and sheer force of sound are remarkable.
Still, this is by no means a traditional audiophile recording. Baker and his recording engineers, Jonathan Demers and James Plotkin, have managed to carefully balance detail and transparency with extreme density and congestion. Two-thirds of the way into the title track, some audiophiles will begin to wonder if they've purchased a bad pressing, or if their cartridge needs a new stylus. No need to worry: Intense distortion is as much a part of Baker's sonic palette as is the airy roundness of a flute or the slender, long-tailed grace of a violin. Both the five-star Performance rating and 2.5-star Sonics rating were given by John Atkinson, who feels the mix suffers from excessive sparkle and "life" added to cymbals. For better or worse, I don't hear what JA hears. Plotkin says there was "a good amount of high-frequency attenuation and general EQ balancing done during mastering," and admits that the midrange was, at times, judiciously boosted to compensate for some scooping in preliminary mixes.
In any case, whether played at high or low volume, enjoyed through a cost-no-object system or inexpensive earbuds, Aidan Baker's Already Drowning is singularly compelling, vastly rewarding, and nearly impossible to ignore.—Stephen Mejias
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Nordost Premiers the Valhalla 2
Rune Skov shows off the new Nordost Valhalla 2 interconnect ($9799/2m pair) next to his sweet Nordost tattoo.
On Tuesday May 28th, 2013, Nordost premiered the Valhalla 2 cable lineup at Lyric Hi-Fi in New York City. Rune Skov, International Product Training & Sales Support Manager for Nordost, gave a demonstration to a garrulous group of audiophiles who joyfully suggested what differences they heard as Skov switched out each old Valhalla cable for the new one.
The first iteration of the Valhalla is a 13-year old technology. Skov stated the Valhalla “really put Nordost on the map,” but that “it was time to make changes.” Many attendees at the demo proclaimed proud ownership of Valhalla but were curious to hear the advantages of the new design. As usual, nobody had the audacity to take the sweet spot chair. A self-proclaimed symphony-conductor and I took seats at the wings of the front row.
The Valhalla 2 power cord costs $5,999.99 for 2 meters and is $1,000 each additional meter. The Valhalla 2 power cord is comprised of seven solid silver plated 16 AWG OFC conductors intertwined and suspended in a Dual Mono-Filament matrix. It is insulated with extruded fluorinated ethylene propylene (FEP), a really awesome plastic used in lab-ware and tubing for corrosive processes.
Rune started with an all Valhalla 2 wired system except for a single Valhalla 1 power cord running from the wall to a Quantum QB8 power distribution center ($1499). Other gear plugged into the QB8 included the Simaudio Moon 880M monoblocks ($42,000/pair), Simaudio Moon 750D CD Transport ($12,500), and Simaudio Moon P8 Preamplifier ($16,000). The Focal Stella Utopia loudspeakers ($95,000/pair) finished it off.
We listened to a performance Tchaikovsky’s Nocturne by Chinese cellist Ma Xinhua from the Rhymhoi release Three Wishes for a Rose. After switching the to the Valhalla 2 power cord, I heard a deepening of the soundstage, more relaxed extension into the highs, and a slightly sweeter sound overall. Skov suggested, “Everything becomes more natural.” A participant interjected that he could hear the “wood of the instrument.”
We then ran the same test with another track from the same album, this time only switching the power cable of the Simaudio 750D CD Transport from Valhalla 1 to Valhalla 2. The rest of the cables remained Valhalla 2. I heard cleaner and more extended highs, extended sustain on the rumbling left hand of the pianist, and greater dynamics.
Skov sold his power chord: “Your system will never sound better than the first power chord you have.”
Third to demo was the Valhalla 2 interconnect which costs $9799 for two meters and an additional $1100 for each additional half-meter. Skov interchanged balanced interconnects on the Simaudio 750 CD Transport. We listened to Chai Lang’s performance of "Theme from the Godfather" on the Rhymoi compilation A Time to Meet Again. In this comparison, I heard a less obvious difference but still a difference. There were longer sustains to the piano, a bit of shrillness from the violin was eased away, and the violin’s transition to a lower-pitched section seemed a touch less bulky.
The Valhalla 2 interconnect is offered with both single-ended and balanced terminations. With the single-ended cables, circular wood blocks wrapped around the interconnect instruct the user from which direction to transfer the signal. Both terminations feature Nordost’s new trademarked Holo:Plug technology which claims to maximize efficiency of your signal transfer by creating a direct connection with the wire’s conductors.
At this point, the conductor next to me asked for a recording with a full orchestra. I made an aggressive move and took the sweet spot.
Skov played Camille Saint-Saëns’ Danse Macabre as performed by the Minnesota Orchestra, conducted by Eiji Oue, and recorded by an editor at Hong Kong hi-fi magazine Audio Technique. Most startling and enjoyable were the piece’s shifting dynamics and the system’s startling impact with the unisons of timpani and double bass.
Another attendee asked for some jazz. Skov played Vietnamese-Danish bass player Chris Minh Doky’s sleepy arrangement for “Every Breath You Take” by the Police. This is jazz?
Skov suggested that the CD sounded weird and put on “All Blues” from Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue. The image was comfortably spread with one sax on each side and Davis’s trumpet clearly centered. The contrast in breathiness and blowing force between Cannonball Adderley’s nearly spritely alto and Coltrane’s mellower tenor was delightful. Good call on the switch Skov!
The final demo of the presentation was for the Valhalla 2 speaker cables priced at $11,849 for a two meter pair and $1500 each additional half meter. Nordost describes:
“The Valhalla 2 Reference Speaker Cable consists of twenty-eight conductors divided into four groups of seven. Each conductor is made from solid core 99.999999% oxygen free copper and plated with 85 microns of silver…The transmission speed of the cable is extremely fast, at over 96% the speed of light.”
Someone better call Marty McFly.
Skov played song “Another Day in Paradise” from Swedish singer Josefine Cronholm. During playback with the Valhalla 1, I noted an enjoyable evenness and cleanliness to the stand-up bass and exciting shimmering rise from a cymbal quickly struck with mallets.
Skov and Michael Taylor of Nordost fell to their knees as they switched the Valhalla 1 for the Valhalla 2 speaker cables. Through the Valhalla 2, I heard more inner detail to the stand up bass with slightly longer decay. A rimshot that had before been mostly metal rim and drumstick now included much more body of the snare. The rising cymbal now featured more body of the cymbal and less shimmer.
Nordost also offers a digital interconnect and tonearm cable within their Valhalla 2 line. As I left the event, Michael Fremer arrived. He’s got some Valhalla 2’s at home. Hopefully, he will share his thoughts in the future either in Stereophile or on AnalogPlanet.com. To sum up the improvements from the Valhalla 1 to the Valhalla 2 that I heard, it seemed the new cables brought out more inner-detail to the instruments, added spaciousness to the soundstage, and eased and sweetened the highs.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Your Show of Shows: Newport Beach 2013 Starts Friday
Except that there are a lot more rings.
Anytime you want to kick back and take your mind off audio equipment, there are more enticements than you can shake a cable at. How about a cigar show, fine wine show, and car show (on the Hilton tennis court for starters? The latter promises the Tesla S electric sedan; the GTM, "one of the fastest cars on earth;" and 15 other autos, some far more expensive than a Wilson Alexandria XLF. To enable you to keep up with the GTM, you can head to the nine food trucks, including the enticing Lobsta Truck, Tamarindo Truck, and Rolling Sushi Van.
On Friday and Saturday after hours, as it were, the Atrium parking lot will be transformed into an outdoor theatre showing Avatar and Pixar Short Films Vol.1. Those seeking more of the "live" experience, albeit amplified, can fill one of the 300 seats near the Atrium pool bar from noon to 6, or the Hilton courtyard in the evening, to enjoy the likes of Tierney Sutton, Nnenna Freelon, Mike Garson, Audra Lee, Dean Peer, William Artope Jr, Nina Storey, and the Extreme Guitar Duo. Or they can listen to Arnold Martinez and Michael Mercer spin platters by the pool.
Speaking of platters, there are two places you can buy them: at the 1500 square feet of LPs and CDs for sale in the Hilton Marketplace, or at the 2200 square foot Vinyl Ballroom by the Atrium pool. (Bob Levi, President of the Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society, says the Vinyl Ballroom occupies 3000 square feet). Given how much is going on poolside, and how many attendees are expected—two weeks before show's opening, there were at least 2000 pre-registrants—they're going to need a traffic cop, or at least a stoplight, by the pool.
Too much fun in the sun? How about visiting the 2000 sq. ft. Headphonium Ballroom in the Atrium, where at least 20 headphone exhibitors will attempt to can you with their wares. JVC and Dynaudio also plan to pack their ballrooms with goodies. You can also kick back in the LAOCAS's Hospitality Suite at the Hilton, which promises $5 discount coupons for many of the software vendors, or the San Diego Music & Audio Guild's Hospitality Suite at the Atrium.
Last but not least, you can attend any or all 16 seminars, not the least of which are three that include Stereophile editor John Atkinson: Friday's kick-off seminar at noon, "Garbage In, Garbage Out!" and Friday and Saturday 's "Meet the Editors" panels. Also from Stereophile, Michael Fremer will join JA at Saturday's Editors panel, and also lead "Turntable Set-Up Demystified" events on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. From our online sister publication, Innerfidelity.com, Tyll Hertsens will participate in "Headphones: The Good, Bad, and Ugly."
Exhibit Premieres
Richard Beers, President of T.H.E. Show, was too blitzed from putting all this together (with more than a little help from his friends) to even think of assembling a list of show premieres, and Levi was too busy counting his new members. (Given that LAOCAS offers free show admission to new members, the society's membership has swelled from 600 to 1400 in the past three years.) But together with Lucette Nicoll, publicist extraordinaire, Stereophile has uncovered a number of US consumer audio show premieres. While the list is far from complete, it contains enough ear-opening enticements to make show attendance a necessity.
In no particular order, let's start with the new line of Harvig Audio turntables from Denmark. Reite Audio shows its new phono stage, line stage, monoblock power amplifiers, and headphone amplifier. Speaking of which, The Cable Company displays its new Hi-End Headphone home audition library, and debuts on the West Coast the Abyss headphones and Cavalli "Liquid-Gold" amplifier.
Lawrence Audio displays the new Cello floor-standing loudspeakers. EAR USA brings Marten's new Django L loudspeaker, a smaller version of what has been renamed the Django XL. Nola debuts the stand-mounted Micro Grand Reference Gold, designed for smaller rooms. Kharma, back after too long an absence from these shores, displays the new Elegance dB9 Signature, part of an Elegance line that succeeds the Ceramique line. ENIGMAcoustics unveils the Sopranino, "the world's first self-biased electrostatic speaker," and the Mythology, a compact bookshelf full-range series.
Not to be outdone, YG Acoustics presents the US debut of the Sonja 1.2 loudspeaker, a two-module version of their flagship Sonja 1.3. Earo Acoustics makes the first public presentation of their ultra-thin Wally loudspeaker, Onda Ligera shows their loudspeakers and electronics for the first time in the US, and AAudio Imports debuts Capriccio Continuo's Auralea 309 curved loudspeaker. From TEAC in distributor mode come three never shown Cabasse loudspeakers, the Pacific 3SE, wireless Stream 3, and Minorca.
TEAC also shows the TEAC UD-501 dual-mono DAC with USB and DSD streaming, and M2Tech HIFACE DAC, a USB stick-sized baby (think AudioQuest Dragonfly in size and price) that decodes up to 24-bit data at 384kHz, which is nothing to scoff at. Sunny Components promises a bunch of new products: Wadia Intuition 01, which seems to be a one-piece DAC/amplifier that can handle 384/32 via USB; Isotek EVO3 Elite power cables, Premiere power cables, Genesis power regenerator, and Super Titan power conditioner; and Sunny Mediacube. Some of these will make music with Wilson Audio's Alexia loudspeaker, which should make for quite an interesting demo. Cary Audio introduces the new DAC 100t vacuum tube asynchronous USB DAC, which also comes in a solid-state version and processes up to 24/192.
Acoustic Sounds promised new pressings of recordings by Patsy Cline, Phoebe Snow, Elvis, the Doors, Norah Jones and "much more." LKV Research introduces the Phono 2-SB phonostage, and Dynamic Sounds Associates (DSA) brings their direct-from-the-manufacturer Phono II phono preamplifier. Optimal Enchantment debuts the two-chassis Reference Phono 10 phono stage.
Red Dragon Audio debuts their latest 1000- and 500-watt amplifiers. Empirical Audio debuts their Final Drive transformer buffer, meant for insertion between components. Bob's Devices introduces two new step-up transformers, the SKY 30 and, for VPI turntables, the VPI-SUT. True Audiophile shows the 24W Audion Super Sterling 120, claimed to be the world's single-ended KT120 stereo amplifier.
Expect lots of cable premieres. For starters, look for Teresonic's new Clarison Digital cables, paired with two other product introductions, the Baetis Audio XR music server and Metrum Acoustics HEX DAC. Nordost brings their long-awaited Valhalla 2 line, which completes their new cable line-up. Synergistic Research introduces their new top-of-the-line actively shielded Galileo LE interconnects, speaker cable, and power cords, which will be paired with VAC amplification and Magico Q7 speakers. Not to be outdone, WyWires introduces the Platinum Series interconnects and Gold USB cable with Bybee Slipstream Purifiers. And Shunyata Research, another inhabitant of the Sunny Components rooms, introduces five new products: the eight-outlet Hydra AV, PS 8 Venom power strip with its optional Venom Defender module, Venom HC power cord, and Venom HDMI.
T.H.E. Show Newport Beach kicks off on Friday, May 31, at 10:30AM in the Hilton Lobby. Join John Atkinson, Michael Fremer, Robert Harley, and David Robinson as they cut the gold ribbon, then dash for safety as thousands follow the yellow brick road to Music La-La Land. On Saturday and Sunday, the show starts at 10AM; on all three days, it ends at 6PM. JA and I will be on hand to share as many show highlights as possible with you.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Payday Albums: 5/24/13
Hmm . . . I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
For now: Today’s payday. These are the albums I bought.
Dalhous: An Ambassador for Laing (LP, Blackest Ever Black)
With a title like An Ambassador for Laing, track titles like “He Was Human and Belonged with Humans,” and such quietly beautiful artwork, this LP needed to be in my collection. Plus, it’s on Blackest Ever Black, and everything on Blackest Ever Black is good.
The Caretaker: Persistent Repetition of Phrases (LP, History Always Favours the Winners)
I love everything Leyland Kirby has released. Especially his Caretaker work. Actually, I’m pretty sure that I already have this particular album on CD—hell, I might already have it on vinyl—but I bought it anyway. So what?
Jenny Hval: Innocence Is Kinky (LP, Rune Grammofon)
I don’t merely love everything Jenny Hval has released; I want to have sex with everything she’s released. What? Is that weird? No, it’s not. Have you heard Hval’s voice? Listened to her words? I bought two copies of this record—one for me and one for a friend—and now I feel like I should have bought a few more. Get your heads out of the gutter. My review of Innocence will appear in our August issue; my conversation with Hval will appear here later this year.
Dean Blunt: The Redeemer (LP, Hippos In Tanks)
Dean Blunt, one half of oddball noisemakers Hype Williams, returns with a slinky, smoky, dark, and soulful solo release. Dean Blunt is the man. I would like buy this record a beer.
Glenn Jones: My Garden State (LP, Thrill Jockey)
This record is inspired by two of my favorite things in life: New Jersey and moms. Plus, Glenn Jones comes closer than anyone I’ve heard to conjuring the soul of John Fahey, without actually ripping off John Fahey. I would like to go for a long drive down the Turnpike with this record. I’ll bring the E-ZPass.
I purchased these LPs at Other Music and Forced Exposure.
Bonus Round
Here's a list of records that I want to buy, but have so far managed to avoid:
Lubomyr Melnyk: Corallaries
John Roberts: Fences
Julia Holter: "Maria" b/w "2HB"
Lussuria: American Babylon
Ol' Dirty Bastard: Return to the 36 Chambers (The Dirty Version)
But, really, my struggle is pointless. I will buy these records, sooner or later. And then, there'll be more.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
21 Tracks for Newport Beach: A Playlist
Jason asked if I’d be able to send him a flash drive carrying a few demo tracks that he might use to audition systems at the show—a fun idea, however one that I can’t successfully realize: At this time, I have no real library of high-resolution (or even CD-quality) digital files, nor do I have proper means of ripping CDs. Simply put, while I do plan on building a proper computer-audio system, I haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’ve been busy hanging out with girls and cats, decorating the new apartment, and admiring the Mets’ ability to find creative ways to lose close games. Give me a few more months.
In any case, I liked Jason’s idea too much to completely disregard it: I’m basically dying to share music with people. So, instead of a flash drive stuffed with hi-rez digital files, I’ve compiled a Spotify playlist. As I mentioned to Jason, I’m typically too shy, or scared, to bring my own demo material to a hi-fi show: Too often, the music I most want to hear proves offensive to too many people, and, despite how it might seem, I’m really not interested in pushing people away or clearing listening rooms.
What I have here, then, is 21 Tracks for Newport Beach: A Playlist Comprising Songs I’d Love to Play at a Hi-Fi Show, If I Wasn’t Afraid to Play the Songs I Love at a Hi-Fi Show. Newport Beach might be just the venue, actually: More than any other North American hi-fi show, this one’s getting a reputation for being a party.
Not that my playlist is especially booty-shaking or anything. It actually contains quite a bit of rather tame, civilized sounds: You’ll hear piano, harp, violin, cello, beautifully recorded female vocals. But, yeah, you’ll also hear some booty-shaking beats.
1. Mary Lattimore: “Poor Daniel”
2. Nadia Sirota: Etude 3
3. Valgeir Sigurdsson: “Reverse Erased”
4. Julia Holter: “Marienbad”
5. Julianna Barwick: “The Magic Place”
6. Sophie Hutchings: “Half Hidden”
7. Nils Frahm: “Ambre”
8. Jenny Hval: “Mephisto In the Water”
9. Hildur Gudnadottir: “Into Warmer Air”
10. David Lang: “Death Speaks, No.1: You Will Return”
11. Nicolas Jaar: “Balance Her In Between Your Eyes”
12. James Blake: “Retrograde”
13. FaltyDL: “For Karme”
14. Usher: “Climax”
15. R. Kelly: “Double Up”
16. Kendrick Lamar: “Money Trees”
17. When Saints Go Machine: “Love and Respect”
18. The Asphodells: “Beglammered”
19. Standish/Carlyon: “Nono/Yono”
20. Beacon: “Feeling’s Gone”
21. Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto: “By This River”
You need a Spotify account to listen. It takes about two minutes to open an account, and I found the experience to be a lot of fun. I thank Stereophile’s editorial assistant, Ariel Bitran, for getting me started, and Jason for the original idea. I hope you enjoy the playlist. Please don’t hate me if you don’t. (It’s just music.)
Source : stereophile[dot]com
VTL's Luke Manley
Luke Manley: My dad, David Manley, and I co-founded VTL in June of 1986. We started small on the East Coast, and soon after we moved to California.
Scull: Is it because you're really a West Coast kind of guy?
Manley: [laughs] You bet! There's a lot of supporting industries out there; a big base of electronics manufacturers, for example.
Scull: What, in the San Francisco area?
Manley: No, I'm speaking about Los Angeles. Even though I live near San Francisco, I keep the factory down there. You know, those support industries I mentioned—metalworkers, transformer vendors, distributors, and so on. Also, this way I keep the same core crew that I've had since we moved to California in '87.
Scull: I suppose it's inevitable that I ask you if you'd clarify the relationship between you and papa David at Manley Labs.
Manley: We've been totally separate companies since April 1993, and neither one of us has any financial interest in the other's concern. My dad designed the basic circuit topology—a parallel input stage, a longtail splitter, and a push-pull output stage with certain specifications, like stiff power supplies, a certain amount of capacitance in the power supply, solid-state diodes, and a particular type of transformer wind.
Scull: Let's talk about the transformers for a moment. You do not source them from Manley Labs?
Manley: That's right.
Scull: Would you care to elaborate?
Manley: Sure. Our premium output transformer is called the Signature. We took the Magic Transformer design and improved it substantially. I'm speaking about the transformer that was made for us before Dad started winding his own in-house. The way it was made by the previous vendor was not the quality we needed, so we found another whose work is far superior.
Scull: ...and who shall remain nameless?
Manley: Well, I can say that the new vendor has a much cleaner operation. I spent about a year with them getting this new transformer organized with them.
Scull: Your transformers are really enormous...
Manley: In this amplifier, yeah.
Scull: Besides their immense girth, what are some of their special features?
Manley: The Signature transformer's major strength is that it can deliver the current in the bass while maintaining the speed in the high frequencies, dramatically improving the squarewave response. That means a much cleaner sound. The biggest challenge with designing a big output transformer is that it needs to be as big as possible to handle the bass current, but it gets harder and harder to keep up the speed in the top end as the size of the transformer increases. If the coupling is not done carefully, the capacitance and leakage inductance will roll-off the highs. We manage this by substantially increasing the number of sections over the previous output transformers, improving the coupling between the primary and secondary windings, and even between the individual wires. This increases efficiency by lowering insertion loss. The multiple sections and better winding-to-winding coupling gives the amplifier the capability to pass [full power] right out to the frequency extremes.
Another thing: the primary impedance of the transformer is more precisely matched to the plate impedance of the output tubes, and with the impedance set for an optimum speaker load of 5 ohms, you get the most efficient current transfer from the power tubes to the speaker load. This in turn allows our amps to better handle fluctuations in speaker impedance, and gives much more flexibility in handling a wider range of speaker loads.
Scull: Can current owners of VTL amps upgrade?
Manley: Yes, the Signature transformer can be retrofitted to VTL amps already out in the field.
Scull: How much loop negative feedback do you run in these monsters—the Wotan '1250s?
Manley: 14dB.
Scull: Obviously you're not afraid of feedback...
Manley: Right. A small amount is something that's pretty good to have. It's necessary to keep the amplifier under control and prevent oscillations.
Scull: 14dB is considered "low" feedback?
Manley: Less than 20dB is considered low. You know, negative feedback got a bad name—I'm quoting from The VTL Book—from the days when people would rely on it to panel-beat the circuits straight. And they weren't even making good-sounding circuits to begin with! If you use feedback for what it's really intended for, then a small amount is okay. Tubes are inherently feedback devices, you know, by the way they operate.
Scull: What would you say to someone who's afraid of tubes? I mean, twenty-four 6550s per side in the Wotan is enough to send someone with a weak constitution into tube shock!
Manley: I would say tubes sound much more musical than transistors, and that's really the bottom line. I don't deny that some people may prefer the sound of transistors, but I think if you listen for the music, tubes are better.
Of course, tube designs do operate at higher voltages. And when things do go, it can be quite spectacular. But at VTL we go to great lengths to keep that sort of thing from happening. You don't have to take it into the shop to change tubes, for example. The Wotan features individual bias-trim pots, so you don't need matched sets of tubes.
Scull: What happens when a tube goes down?
Manley: They're set up so that if a tube blows, it takes out the fuse and nothing else. You replace the tube and the high-tension fuse, and you're on your way again. All you have to do is re-bias it. Let me tell you, that's a lot easier than replacing a transistor. Don't forget, if one should fail, the new transistor has to be matched with the rest—no easy pull'n'plug.
Scull: What possessed you to create this kind of a statement product for VTL?
Manley: I want to communicate to people that VTL makes high-power tube amplifiers. You know, 24 tubes per side ought to get the message across! And, as for the high power, I believe you really need lots to control a speaker. 1250W will really grab hold and control most speakers you can name. To my ear, that's where the performance comes from.
Scull: And you prefer triode mode yourself?
Manley: No doubt. Your Avalons are 86–87dB sensitivity, right? 600W should be enough power.
Scull: Mm-hm. A nice piece of understatement, Luke. Thanks for the background...
Manley: Thank you, Jonathan!
Editor's Note: Interviews with Luke Mnaley were also published in December, 1997 and June, 2007.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
How Not to Change a Tweeter
Dusty guitar amps, dirt-speckled stage light fixtures, and busted drivers piled atop each other on a series of shelves. I inspected each piece of gear carefully. Atop the highest shelf, I found it. They were covered in scratch marks and gum, but the logo was clear: Polk Audio. The “i" was dotted with a little heart. I fell in love.
I asked to test them out. The soundman stripped one end of a quarter inch cable and plugged it into to the back of one of the speakers. He plugged the terminated end of the quarter inch into the unbalanced output of a powered mixer. Music played. We followed the same procedure with speaker number two. A flask or two of whiskey deep, all I heard was awesome. I brought home a pair of Polk Audio Monitor 7s for $30.
Listening at home, I became aware that one of the speakers’ tweeters was not functioning.
The Polk Audio Monitor 7s sat unused for two years.
I informed Polk Representative Adam Sohmer of my situation. He told me that Polk was going to make me new tweeters for the speakers. Two months later, two small boxes each identified as “Authentic Polk Replacement” arrived at the Stereophile office.
I asked Adam, “Will I have to solder?”
“Yes! Definitely.”
I was excited for this new opportunity. To help me in the process, I invited friend and old band-mate Darrell Dumas to my house. He’s a guitar gear geek who builds his own pedals. He was more than down to teach me how to solder and help me in the speaker reconstruction process.
Before Darrell arrived, I removed the tweeter to confirm that we were indeed going to need to solder, and it was not just pushpins like my Usher S-520s. Bulbous metallic bubbles connected the cables coming from inside the speaker to the tweeter. Soldering was required.
Darrell arrived and we put on our safety glasses. Larry the cat watched.
This is Darrell. He plays in a band called Hot Twins.
We placed the speaker, back down, on a piece of cardboard in case any melted solder dripped to the ground. Using my brand new Weller WES51 Soldering Iron, we applied the hot iron to a pre-existing joint and melted away the old solder. Following this, we cut off the old wire and stripped off about an inch of insulation.
We thread the exposed wire into the new tweeter’s binding posts. Using a 0.5-ounce container of acid-free Benzomatic rosin core solder, we held the tip of the solder to the destined joint location and touched the iron to the solder. The solder melted over the wire and binding post and created a shiny little orb.
After soldering the first tweeter, we discovered the faceplate of the new tweeter was smaller than the old one. The correct thing to do in this situation would have been:
a) Pause all work.
b) Contact Polk Audio and inform them of the mismatched faceplate size.
c) Tell Darrell to go home.
But that’s not what we did. Instead, we did what most musicians would do: Improvise!
The first idea was to try and exchange the faceplates of the old and new tweeters. While there were four screws on the outer ridge of the faceplate to hold the tweeter to the cabinet, there were also four screws around the tweeter’s dome that seemed to hold the dome and the voice coil to the faceplate. We removed those four screws from the old and new tweeters. Unfortunately, the dome and voice coil of the old tweeter were permanently affixed to the faceplate unlike the dome and voice coil of the new tweeter, which could be separated. This ruined our ingenious plan.
The old tweeter.
The new tweeter.
When I showed JA the pictures the following week, he gasped and nearly scolded, “Don’t do that! You’ve killed the tweeter.” Eternally calm, this is the most shaken I’ve ever actually seen JA. What did I do? “You can’t post this!” he commanded.
I asked him, “If there are screws there, then why shouldn’t I be able to unscrew it?” This still seems like a reasonable question.
“Because the tweeter’s dome and voice coil are lined up precisely above the magnet with a jig by a trained assembly-person. The exact centering of the tweeter is required so that it may move in and out of the circular gap between the central polepiece in the correct fashion.”
“Oh.”
“There could also be some ferrofluid in there that you let out.”
“But the tweeter worked!”
“It worked?”
Since we couldn’t combine the old faceplate with the new tweeter dome and voice coil, we devised a surgical procedure. We positioned the faceplate and re-installed tweeter dome and voice coil so at least two of the holes matched up to the cabinet. We drove a nail into the cabinet where the mismatched holes lined up and twisted screws into the newly formed openings. After hooking the speaker up to my amplifier, we played the high frequency test tones from Stereophile’s Editor’s Choice. The tweeter worked! We got lucky.
It was now time to change the tweeter on the speaker that was actually broken. When I opened this speaker, a cloud of white dust emerged. We followed the same procedure: cut the wire, strip the wire, thread the wire, hold solder and iron to joint and melt together. We performed the same nail-through-cabinet surgery and hooked the speaker up to the amp. This time the tweeter did not work. Mind you, this was not the tweeter we had performed our previous disassembly, which could have potentially killed the tweeter. Our soldering the second time around was even more careful than the first.
We opened the back of the speaker to see if we could notice something funny in the crossover, but at that point, Darrell and I realized we both had no idea what we were doing. I’ll be taking the speaker to JA’s house for further investigation.
The crossover.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Broken Deer: Polaraura
Dobbin then released a track called “White Woman,” said to be from her forthcoming album, Polaraura, planned for release on the more or less defunct 8-track format. I’m not sure what came of that; Dobbin only says that events in her personal life delayed the album’s release. In her words, “It’s been so long to find its way out into the world . . .” Since then, Dobbin has spent time living in a small cabin in the Yukon, with only her dog and a tape recorder, “willfully sucked into the rural, off-grid lifestyle,” she says.
Polaraura is finally being released—as an extremely limited (20 copies; just 8 remaining as I type), hand-packaged cassette, wrapped in birch-tree bark and tied with moose sinew. Each cassette comes with a digital download and includes a zine featuring album notes and Dobbin’s writing from the time spent in the cabin.
These are low-fidelity recordings of an extremely personal nature, but recordings that nevertheless transport the listener to another time and place. In this music, we hear carefully plucked guitar, gently tapped keys, the sound of winds, wolves, owls, and rivers. The press release states:
As the winter progressed, Dobbin’s waking world and dream world began to merge. Animals started coming to her—a lynx, then owl, then a black wolf. The forest and the billowing steam from the pot on the stove seemed to be alive with spirits.
Have you read Haruki Murakami’s Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World? The description of Dobbin’s process reminds me so much of Murakami’s book. Listening to Dobbin’s music, like reading Murakami, is an enchanting and often unsettling experience—distant, lonely, but also alluring.
The press release continues:
Dobbin documented the feelings surrounding this reality (or non-reality) musically. Along with songs of longing, sounds of the river, wolves, snow, wind, forest spirits, owls, and northern lights all appear on Polaraura. Moving from winter darkness, longing and hunger, to the insight and relief of spring, the one-track journey explores the wisdom of a northern landscape and how it might mirror a place within.
Broken Deer’s Polaraura is available now. The album is made of five parts, ranging between four and 10 minutes in length, and including a slightly shorter, quieter version of “White Woman.” You can listen to the entire work here.
Perhaps my favorite track is Part 2, "My Heart's in the Highlands." A video for the song was directed by Heather Rappard and stars Erika Ellsworth.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Focal XS Book Music System Sweepstakes
According to the company:
Whatever your musical taste, uncover all the power and emotion your music, movie and gaming collection has to offer with Focal’s elegant and compact desktop 2.0 active loudspeaker system. Based on 33-years of acoustic research and over a dozen patents, Focal has created the ideal powered desktop loudspeaker system that will delight your senses while delivering years of dependable service. Hear exactly what you’ve been missing; experience just how good desktop music can sound.Focal’s powerful self-amplified XS Book desktop music system delivers stunning sound quality, the result of 33-years of music industry leadership. Sonic inspiration for your laptop, your iPhone, your iTouch or iPod, the XS Book brings music and sound to life powerfully, and personally.
Two-year parts and labor warranty. Ships with a one meter AC cable, 1.5M stereo phone jack cable terminated in 3MM stereo plug, 1.5M loudspeaker extension cable and owners manual.
To enter the sweepstakes, all you need is an account on this website. If you don't already have one, click on the link labeled "register" at the bottom of this announcement or "Create new account" in the right column (under the ads). Then, enter a username and a valid e-mail address, and click on the "Create new account" button. A message will be automatically sent to the e-mail address you specified, which will include a link to activate the account.
The final step (and only step for those who already have an account) is to log in and leave a comment right here on this announcement—any comment will do, as long as it's not profane or spam. Then, when the sweepstakes closes, a lucky commenter will be chosen at random to receive the prize. So post a comment, and good luck!
For complete sweepstakes rules, click here.
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Velodyne DF-661 loudspeaker
Silicon Valley–based Velodyne was founded in 1983 to develop a range of subwoofers that used servo-control to reduce non-linear distortion to vanishingly small levels. They succeeded in this goal to the extent that Velodyne is now perhaps the best-known subwoofer company in the US, currently employing 65 people. At the 1994 Winter CES, Velodyne launched the subject of this review: the DF-661 ($1800–$2600/pair), their first full-range loudspeaker (the "DF" stands for "Distortion-Free"). The three-way DF-661 was designed from the ground up to continue the Velodyne tradition of ultra-low distortion. "We had developed the technology and resources to attack distortion elsewhere in the audio chain," wrote company President David Hall, "and started with the premise that, by definition...distortion in loudspeakers is wrong." (His italics.) "We went to the laboratory for a solution, with the living room as the ultimate goal." Velodyne calls this attention to technological detail "The Silicon Valley approach to sound."
To achieve their goal of less than 0.1% THD at any frequency in the new speaker's passband, Hall and his team developed radically new midrange- and low-frequency units for the DF-661. Velodyne manufactures both drive-units in-house, which has meant considerable capital investment in the necessary machines, tools, and jigs.
The DF-661 woofer has a roll surround and features a spun-aluminum cone, intended to act as a perfect piston. The cone profile was carefully shaped to reduce the amplitude of higher-frequency breakup modes, which will contribute to the measured distortion. The cone is attached to a long voice-coil former, this filled with a lightweight damping material to keep it from flexing radially. The woofer's diecast chassis was designed to minimize reflections from the rear of the cone: the metal arms joining the front of the chassis to the motor are carefully profiled and extend straight back so that the only immediate acoustic obstruction is the spider. The chassis is also decoupled from the magnet structure with rubber bushings, so that cabinet excitation is kept to a minimum.
All of this reduces the level of distortion components. But the largest reduction in non-linearity is due to the use of a stationary counter-coil between the magnet polepiece and the voice-coil. Electrically in series with the moving coil, the counter-coil renders the woofer's impedance purely resistive. More importantly, it cancels distortion components arising from magnetic nonlinearities, the modulation of the fixed field by the varying field generated by the current passing through the voice-coil, for example. The price to be paid for this drastic improvement in linearity, however, is that the driver's efficiency is halved. Not only does the magnetic gap have to be wider, but only half of the total coil winding generates sound.
The midrange unit has a similar chassis and motor to the woofer, but features a laminated cone with two layers of aluminum separated by a visco-elastic damping layer. Its surround is also different, being very non-compliant. Only the tweeter is not made by Velodyne; it's a version of the well-known SEAS 1" aluminum-dome unit. Because this will not meet the Velodyne 0.1% THD at 1W goal in its lower octave, it is crossed over to the midrange unit at 5.5kHz.
Physically, the DF-661 looks elegant, and is taller than it is wide. The midrange unit is mounted at the top of the baffle with the tweeter and woofer beneath it. The woofer is reflex-loaded with a rear-panel port, 1.85" in diameter and just under 3" deep. The Velodyne grilles—black cloth stretched over bulky wooden frames—were left off for the tests.
The DF-61's crossover is constructed on a printed circuit board mounted to the rear panel behind the terminal posts on standoff pillars. Air-cored coils are used to avoid core saturation, and an additional series capacitor is used in the woofer feed to give an overall fifth-order rollout.
Distortion
Understandably, the first thing I examined about the DF was its non-linear distortion performance. Velodyne specifies less than 0.1% THD, –60dB, at a 1W level, though no frequency range is mentioned. I therefore drove the speaker with 50Hz, 100Hz, 200Hz, 500Hz, 1kHz, 2kHz, and 5kHz sinewaves at voltage levels of 2.83V and 8.95V. Measured at the speaker terminals with a Fluke 87 true-RMS multimeter, these represent nominal 1W and 10W levels. With each signal, I captured the speaker's output waveform with a B&K 4006 microphone with its capsule positioned 12" from the DF-661's tweeter (footnote 1). An EAR mike preamp fed the magazine's Audio Precision System One DSP analyzer, which calculated the sound's spectrum, hence the levels of all the harmonic components, using the Fast Fourier Transform.
Table 1: Velodyne DF-661
Distortion Harmonic Levels in dB ref. Fundamental Level
| Frequency (Impedance) | Drive Power | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
| 50Hz (13 ohms) | 2.83V 0.62W | -34.75 | -39.6 | -50.3 | -46.3 |
| 8.95V 6.16W | -32.9 | -28.1 | -42.4 | -41.5 | |
| 100Hz (8.3 ohms) | 2.83V 0.96W | -53.3 | -54.8 | - | - |
| 8.95V 9.65W | -42.6 | -52.3 | -72.4 | -68.3 | |
| 200Hz (3.4 ohms) | 2.83V 2.35W | -55.9 | -64.9 | -69.6 | -65.1 |
| 8.95V 23.5W | -47.2 | -51.5 | -60.7 | -65.1 | |
| 500Hz (5.4 ohms) | 2.83V 1.48W | -62.4 | -65.8 | -83.1 | -72.75 |
| 8.95V 14.8W | -51.0 | -56.1 | -75.3 | -70.1 | |
| 1kHz (5.1 ohms) | 2.83V 1.57W | -60.6 | -66.6 | -88.1 | -67.7 |
| 8.95V 15.7W | -57.2 | -71.0 | -82.9 | -74.2 | |
| 2kHz (3.65 ohms) | 2.83V 2.19W | -57.7 | -67.9 | -78.9 | -71.6 |
| 8.95V 21.9W | -51.1 | -61.5 | -70.5 | -77.0 | |
| 5kHz (5.6 ohms) | 2.83V 1.43W | -49.1 | -62.9 | - | - |
Table 2: B&W Silver Signature
Distortion Harmonic Levels in dB ref. Fundamental Level
| Frequency (Impedance) | Drive Power | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
| 100Hz (11.9 ohms) | 2.83V 0.67W | -40.5 | -53.3 | -75.7 | -68.6 |
| 8.95V 6.7W | -31.0 | -40.0 | -57.6 | -62.1 | |
| 1kHz (31.2 ohms) | 2.83V 0.26W | -55.8 | -45.0 | -78.0 | -59.6 |
| 8.95V 2.58W | -45.3 | -35.2 | -59.5 | -67.0 |
The levels of the DF-661's individual harmonics are given in Table 1, while Table 2 shows the performance of the B&W Silver Signature loudspeaker measured under the same conditions. (Note that I've listed each speaker's impedance magnitude at each of the test frequencies. This is because the 2.83V and 8.95V voltage levels I used will only be equivalent to 1W and 10W power levels if the impedance is exactly 8 ohms.)
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Source : stereophile[dot]com
Tony Wins Some Schiit
When he plugged the Squeezebox into the BiFrost via glass optical cable, he "immediately noticed more clarity and focus with a less sizzly high end," compared to the analog outputs from his Squeezebox Touch. In addition, low frequencies seemed tighter. He loves the hardy made-in-the-USA build of the BiFrost and Modi, and he's considering the UBER analog upgrade on the BiFrost.
A Stereophile review of the BiFrost is coming soon. The reviewed model includes the UBER upgrade. Since Tony's been reading Stereophile since high school, I have no doubt he'll read our review. Hopefully, it'll help him make his decision.
Thanks for your many years of readership Tony, and congratulations on your win!
Source : stereophile[dot]com
Passion of the Hi-Fi: Part VI - Resolution
“I hope that’s all I need.” After buying a replacement tweeter for one of my Usher S-520s, I asked Stan Tracht, US representative for Usher, a pair of questions.
“Will I need to solder anything?”
“No soldering needed,” Stan advised.
“Do I need to buy a second tweeter to ensure the speakers match?” I’m in the process replacing the tweeters on a pair of busted Polk Audio Monitor 7s I bought in the basement of the Silent Barn for $30. Adam Sohmer, Polk representative, recommended never having unmatched tweeters.
Tracht said, “No need to match the tweeters.”
That’s confidence!
The tweeter arrived two days later. It cost $25. It was surprisingly heavy.
I placed the speaker with the blown tweeter face up from the ground. Of course, the screws holding the tweeter could only be removed with the one Allen key I was missing.
My screwdriver with interchangeable heads was at Stereophile HQ. I needed it to take apart JA’s Creative EMU, a portable computer audio recording interface that I borrowed. While mishandling it during my own recording project, I dislodged the USB input, and the device no longer communicated to a computer. I disassembled the unit to take a look inside and found the golden walls of the USB input spread eagle. By clamping the walls of the input back together, I hoped to save the bird, but after re-affixing the circuit board and casework together, it didn’t even turn on.
Digging through a milk crate of wireless routers, ponchos, and other inessential essentials, I found an old set of drill bits, a high school graduation gift, but I didn't have a drill. I tried removing the screws with the drill bit in between my fingers. This failed. Fortunately, old-roommate Pete left some of his stuff behind while he found a new place including his drill(s).
After drawing out each screw just enough to grab, I twisted them out by hand. I tiltied the speaker to the side, and the tweeter plopped out dangling by a thick set of wires clipped on to posts on the left and right sides of the tweeter. Using needle-nose pliers, I pulled the wire’s pushpins off their posts. The tweeter’s magnet kept drawing my pliers towards the center of the tweeter. This was annoying, but ignoring the magnet’s force, I carefully forced the pushpins onto the new tweeter’s posts and screwed the tweeter back in place.
It worked. My soundstage was now evenly balanced between left and right, but the new tweeter sounded a little tight in its expression of the highs. I sent Stan an email.
Stan consoled me, “It will smooth out.”
Source : stereophile[dot]com
