Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
elcome to the latest edition of The Absolute Sounds Golden Ear Awards. Unlike last issues comprehensive Editors Choice list, Golden Ears is the place where our editors and most frequent contributors choose the components that, whether long-term or newfound favorites, have won a special place in our hearts. The assignment came with no guidelines or restrictions, and, as you might expect, the results are as wide-ranging and unpredictable as the high end itself. Note: Harry Pearsons Golden Ear winners may be found in HPs Workshop, page 99.
SALLIE REYNOLDS
Musical Fidelity A5 CD player $2500 (signalpathint.com) Spendor S8e loudspeaker $3000 (qsandd.com) Prima Luna Prologue Three preamplifier and Five amplifier $1295 each (upscaleaudio.com)
M
40
usical Fidelitys A5 CD player is musical, exciting, clear, extended, and balanced. It produces an extraordinarily broad, deep, and high soundstage, when soundstaging information is on the CD. Its highs are sweet and pure, its mids rich and natural, its bass extended and full, yet tight and precise. It reveals the wonderfully rich layers of complex music in a way that sounds naturalwhich, in my experience, is unusual in reproduced sound at anywhere near this price and it does so without picking the fabric of the musical whole to pieces. The A5 looks good, is easy to set up and reliable, and plays beautifully in every system I have tried it in, modest and not so. A nearly perfect component. (I bought it.) Every now and then, a component comes along that
clicks into place in your system and makes you very happy with your music. The Spendor S8e loudspeaker (a two-way floorstanding model), among the heirs to the BBC monitors of yore, did this for me. Spendors have long been known for their gorgeous midrange and treble. The S8e has, in addition, clean, clear, dramatic basseven low bass. Without a subwoofer, it reproduces even full pipe organ soul-satisfyingly. With a good sub, you will get clearer and purer low lows, but even without, such is the balance and purity of these drivers, you will love what you hear. The S8es also recreate a wide, deep soundstage, one whose height is especially good with singers. The stage is at its best when the listener is in the sweet spot, but you can really be anywhere in the room and get a sense of being surrounded and enveloped in glorious music. The transition from driver to driver is beautifully inaudible. These speakers are easy to set up. They do not require megabuck ancillary equipment, though the finer the equipment you connect to them, the better everything sounds. In a price field that contains several lovely speakers, there is still something mysteriously wonderful about these, and I wouldnt want to be very long without them. The PrimaLuna Prologue Three preamp and Five power amp are at the top of my list for good sound, good value, and simplicity. They are also good fun, if you like playing with tubes (they are built to accept many types, including the EL34), but you dont need to play with tubes. You can be a complete tube neophyte and enjoy these units. They fill the room with exquisite sound, from the whisper of a stroked cymbal or muted violin to the foundation thunder of a great organ. Thats the key. The ProLogues make music; they make it simply; they make it well. They are also easy to set up, nearly indestructible, and play excellently with a variety of speakers. If you like tubes, listen to these. They will confirm your tastes. If you dont like tubes, listen to these. They will change your mind about tubes.
JONATHAN VALIN
MBL 101 E Radialstrahler $46,900 (mbl.com) MBL 6010 D linestage preamp $18,920 MBL 9011 monoblock amplifier $73,480 Audio Research Reference 3 linestage preamp $10,000 (audioresearch.com) Audio Research Reference 210 monoblock amplifier $19,990 Edge NL Signature 1.1 linestage preamp $10,900 (edgeamps.com) Edge NL 12.1 stereo amplifier $18,500
few years ago I recommended three different systems built around the same exemplary loudspeakerthe Maggie 1.6QR. For this years Golden Ears, Im going to do the same thing: Award my Ears to a single speaker system and three different sets of electronics. The speaker is the MBL 101 E Radialstrahler, the fabled ominidirectional loudspeaker from Wolfgang Meletzky. Not only is the 101 E a stunning technological tour-de-force and beautiful object, it is the single most-lifelike transducer Ive heard. I could go on about the 101 Es phenomenal low-level resolution, uncannily realistic treble, you-are-there midrange, and extraordinary bass but what the 101 E really offers that no other loudspeaker does to the same degree is excitement. Like live music heard in a concert hall, recital room, or rock club, the 101 Es will consistently raise the gooseflesh on your arms, the hairs at the back of your neck, the muscles that set your feet tapping and your baton arm swingingas anyone who has auditioned these incredibly cool-looking things at a CES or CEDIA can attest. Theyre simply more alive than the competition, even the horn-based competition.
My first 101 E system, and overall much the best of the lot, is all-MBL, comprising the MBL 6010 D solid-state linestage preamplifier and MBL 9011 solid-state monoblock amplifiers. Whether your source is digital or analog, MBLs preamp and amp bring out more of the 101Es many astonishing qualities better than its rivalsand in two particular instances, much better. Nothing Ive yet heard competes with the resolution and sensational dynamic range of this MBL gear. In combination with each other and the 101 Es, the 6010 D and 9011 dig more deeply into pianissimos and play fortissimos with greater ease and clarity than virtually any hi-fi Ive heard. All this paradigm-shifting resolution and dynamic life comes at a steep price, however. Which leads me to my second 101 E system, the tube-powered Audio Research Reference 3 linestage preamp and Reference 210 monoblock amplifiers. Ive been talking about Audio Research preamps since the first review I wrote for TAS, and I am pleased to say that ARCs latest is also its greatestneutral, detailed, focused, fast, pure, and grainless, with less resolution, extension, and dynamic oomph but more lifelike timbres and better staging than the MBL 6010. As good as it is on its own, in combination with the Reference 210 the Ref 3 becomes a world-beater. The MBL electronics had pushed me over to the Dark Side of solid-state, then I heard the References. Nowwell, if the music you listen to is primarily acoustic and if soundstaging is important to you, this ARC combo is a mustaudition. My third 101 E system is the Edge NL Signature 1.1 batterypowered linestage preamp and NL 12.1 stereo amplifier. If MBL and ARC (to a somewhat lesser extent) give you a microscopically fine view of the soundstage, the Edge preamp and amp gives you an exploded view, where certain instruments rich in upper midrange harmonics (like strings and piano) seemed to be reproduced closer-up. Big, bloomy, airy, and beautiful-sounding, the Edge doesnt have the speed, detail, and bottomoctave clout of the MBL electronics nor the magical staging of the ARC combo, but is still so lifelike in the midband that the losses may not matter to you. They dont much to me. But then I could live happily with any of these combos.
42
PAUL SEYDOR
SME Model 30/2 integrated turntable $35,000 (sumikoaudio.net) McIntosh MC275 Series IV amplifier $3500 (mcintoshlabs.com) Etymotic ER-4S headphones $330 (etymotic.com)
f ever there were a statement product, the SME Model 30/2 is it. As I pointed out in my review (Issue 154), SMEs Alastair Robertson-Aikman applies the principles of high mass, tuned suspension, and judiciously applied damping more effectively than anyone else. Pair it with an appropriate pickup (medium-to-high mass and compliance) and you have playback of vinyl sources that is virtually peerless, especially in the areas of overall background-blackness, dynamic range, and that elusive quality of liveness. It goes without saying that it is also dead neutral, tonally accurate, and wholly without personality as such. At $35,000 (including SMEs flagship arm), it is expensive beyond expensive (though by no means the highest ticket out there); but should you be fortunate enough to own one, I have no doubt that if vinyl is still being played a hundred years from now your heirs will be enjoying it on your Model 30. I have never heard a better tube amplifier than McIntoshs reissued and updated MC275 Series IV, and few better amplifiers period. If you think tubes must have a sonic personality, the extraordinary neutrality and tonal naturalness of this one may shake your prejudices to their foundations. With enough power for all but very inefficient speakers in very large rooms, the MC275 yields some of the most musically persuasive and satisfying reproduction youre ever likely to hear. Consider this a recommendation with highest possible enthusiasm. If you use conventional headphones in a typical large, urban gymnasium, with its Muzak blaring all the time, and you play your CD portable or iPod loudly enough to be heard over the ambient noise, then you are almost certainly damaging your ears. The same may be true for airline travel. Alarmist? Think againhearing damage has become so pervasive that in the past year alone both
major news magazines, Time and Newsweek, have run cover stories on the subject. Etymotic is not the only company to make earphones that fit directly into the ear canal, but it is arguably the one with the solidest credentials. For over 20 years this company has been researching, designing, and manufacturing products to measure, improve, and protect hearing (with 89 patents and a government grant for research). The main reason why headphones such as this militate against hearing damage is that they block out ambient noise more effectively than conventional designs 23dB with the ER-4Sthus allowing you to play the music at a lower level, which you should be doing anyhow. The ER-4S is perhaps the most musically natural headphone Ive heard. Theyre a little shy in the bass (although bass response, as with all headphones, is greatly affected by how you fit them on, or in this case into, your ears), but the highs are extended yet smooth and sweet (rather tube-like, in fact), with none of the tippedup character of conventional headphones, even the best of them. And the midrange is rich and detailed. A lifelong runner, I passed the age of 55 and had to admit that my hip joints no longer liked pounding the pavement. So Ive had to get my aerobic workouts in gyms. The ER-4S came as such a revelation that I cant imagine life without them. Headrooms Airhead portable headphone amplifier is a logical companion, and will blow away the tinny amplifier wannabes that come in portable CD players and iPods. Highest possible recommendation, then, for both products: sonically and for the health of your ears!
44
SUE KRAFT
B&W 800D loudspeaker $20,000 (bwspakers.com) McCormack DNA-500 amplifier $6800 (mccormackaudio.com)
y first pick for Golden Ear honors this year goes to the B&W 800D. This state-of-the-art loudspeaker will forever change the way you hear recorded music. Our brain processes live (unamplified) music as a whole entity because, obviously, thats the way we hear it. With the vast majority of multi-driver loudspeaker systems, the playback of recorded musicwhether we are consciously aware of it or notis processed in sections, because thats also the way its typically heard. The diamond-dome tweeter technology of the 800D so intricately weaves the high frequencies back into the fabric of the music, its as if the wholeness of the live event has been recreated. This wholeness results in spectacularly solid, seamless, and lifelike imagesthe best Ive heard to date. Its almost a bit eerie at times. The varying heights of performers on stage, for example, are so clearly discernable Ive been tempted on occasion to jaunt up to the front of the room and draw outlines around them. Although this breathtaking wholeness of imaging was initially what captivated me, I found the performance of the 800D to be equally stunning in every other regard as well. The capability of this loudspeaker to compellingly recreate musical performances ranging from the delicate intricacies of a solo piano to the brute force of a full orchestra was nothing less than aweinspiring. Never mind the drop-dead-gorgeous looks of these 275-pound beasts. This is the first time in over 20 years that non-audiophile visitors to my home have actually wanted to hear my system. B&W is a technology-driven company that leaves no aspect of a speakers design to chance, and the 800D is truly the crowning jewel of that philosophy. My next Golden Ear pick goes to the McCormack DNA-500 (500 watts per channel)
solid-state power amplifier. If I were to make a list of the components Ive missed the most since (sadly) having to send them packing after a review, the DNA-500 would stand alone at the top. HP has long said its all about the dynamics, and he couldnt be more right. Have you ever walked by the open door of a bar and immediately been able to tell that the music coming from within was live? Have you thought about the reasons why? Above all else, its boundless energy and through-the-roof dynamics that allow us to immediately identify a live performance. I can recall the words buoyancy and bounce coming to mind every time I listened to the DNA-500, and still I worried that my description of what I was hearing would not do this amp justice. Thats the toughest part of this job, trying to convey what Im hearing and feeling and attempting to relate the mental images I experience as Im listening. Sometimes words and descriptions make no sense unless youve actually heard the equipment for yourself. The word liveliness doesnt begin to do this amp justice. Its simple to see why designer Steve McCormack has garnered such a stellar reputation and loyal customer following over the years. The DNA-500s exquisite balance between liquid ease and raw power makes most other solid-state amps sound mechanical and sterile in comparison. It would be hard to imagine any serious music lover not being taken in by the easygoing yet authoritative nature of this gentle giant. I could easily recite a laundry list of all the other things the DNA500 does right, but more than anything else, its the buoyancy, the bouncethe effortless energy and spark of life from withinthat touched my soul and captured the essence of live music for me.
46
CHRIS MARTENS
Usher Dancer CP8571 MkII loudspeaker $7735 (usheraudio.com) NuForce Reference 9 monoblock amps $2500 (nuforce.com) Kuzma Stabi S turntable and Stogi S tonearm $3300 (themusic.com)
he veteran audiophile played one reference recording after another through the Usher Dancer CP8571 MkII floorstanding loudspeaker. He was quiet, so I couldnt tell whether his impressions were favorable or not. Finally, the veteranwho was no stranger to loudspeakers priced at five figures per pair turned and softly asked, How much did you say these cost? Around $7700 per pair, I replied. My guest nodded slowly and then said, You know, if you had told me these speakers cost $20,000 Id have said, Thats a good price for them, considering their sound and build-quality. But at this price. The Taiwanese-made Dancer, a design shaped by Dr. Joseph DAppolito, is by no means inexpensive, but it is so good that listeners invariably compare it to speakers several times its price. Heres why. The Dancer offers essentially full-range sound, with highs produced by one of the smoothest yet most articulate tweeters you could ever hope to hear, an open-sounding midrange with explosive dynamics, punchy yet finely-textured bass, and the sort of overarching soundstage focus that is rare at any price. Factor in Ushers stunning woodwork and you have a loudspeaker that pleases in many of the ways that Wilson Audios WATT/Puppies do, but at a fraction of the price. For audiophiles who aspire to owning top-tier loudspeakers, but whose ships have not yet come in, Ushers Dancer offers serious sonic excellence and tremendous value. When I was a child I loved the story of David and
Goliath, and there are many things about NuForces Reference 9 monoblock power amps that remind me of that story. These 160-watt Class D amps are small and affordable, and look unassuming, but they open up a giant can of sonic whoop-ass on most amps their price, and they sound better than many that cost more. The Reference 9s are exceedingly transparent yet not bright, and they offer potent and expressive dynamics, excellent soundstage width and depth, and world-class bass. Whats not to like? Well, the amps generally dont deliver the holographic, illuminated-from-within midrange of the best tube amps, and they can at times exhibit an accurate-to-a-fault, garbage-in/garbage-out quality. But once you hear the way the NuForces uncover previously unheard nuances in your favorite recordings, I think youll be hooked. Will other modern Class D designs sound as good as, or perhaps better than, the NuForces? Maybe, but for now the Reference 9s establish a new benchmark for affordable excellence in amplification. Lately Ive been doing a lot of listening to the simple but sophisticated Kuzma Stabi S turntable and Stogi S unipivot tonearm from Slovenia, and the combination has really won my heart and mind. As many analog lovers know, the tonal quality of background silences varies from turntable to turntable, and the Stabi S produces a deep, warm, black background that reminds me of the hush you might hear in a concert hall just before the music begins. In turn, the Stogi S is a minimalist but very effective design that can unleash the formidable performance potential of great moving coils such as the Shelter 90X. In particular, the Stogi S promotes absolutely effortless and highly holographic soundstaging, letting high-frequency details come through without edge enhancement, while providing a wonderfully solid bass foundation. But perhaps the truest indicator of the Kuzma pairs sonic goodness lies in the fact that whenever I start spinning favorite LPs on this rig, I just cant seem to stop. If thats not analog magic, what is? (See full review elsewhere in this issue.)
48
ROBERT E. GREENE
Gradient Revolution active loudspeaker $7645 (mayaudio.com) McIntosh XRT28 loudspeaker $19,000 (mcintoshlabs.com) TacT Audio RCS 2.2X/Allison 3/ Harbeth Monitor 40 corner woofer system $3990 (tactaudio.com)
coustics is everything. No doubt we all admire the rococo variations of high-end audio electronics, but to my mind the really fundamental issues of audio are speakers in rooms and, of course, recordings. Experiments have shown that speakers, together with a good amplifier, can accomplish something remarkably like facsimile reproduction, if you listen anechoically. Pick up the speaker output with a good microphone in an anechoic chamber, and its hard to tell that pickup of the amplifier-speaker combination from the original signal when you listen to it later on either speakers or headphones. The direct arrival can, in short, be almost perfect. But preserving this perceived accuracy in actual listening rooms is difficult indeed. My three choices this year are all attempts at solving that fundamental problem of audiomaking a speaker that is unaffected by the listening rooms acoustics. None is perfect, but all three are unusually effective at letting you hear what is really on the recordand nothing else. In theory, one of the very best ways to make a speaker that ignores the acoustics of the listening room is to have dipole radiation in the bass, but in the treble to have forward radiation only in a uniform but relatively narrow pattern. This theoretical dream was realized some years ago by the Gradient Revolution. With its dipole bass and cardioid forward radiation, it was and is a remarkable success at ignoring its surroundings (and sounding neutral in nearly any environment). The original model has been recently supplemented by a new version with a line-level electronic crossover. This design, which requires bi-amplification, allows crossover adjustment of the bass level to fit room size and acoustics. If high bass dynamic capability is desired and/or the speaker is used in a large room, then
the bass units can be doubled uptwo (or more) can be used per channel. The Revolution, even with extra bass units, is quite compact, but it is a giant in sound quality. With woofers on the floor and a highly directional array of midranges and tweeters above, the McIntosh XRT28 makes the direct-arrival sound surprisingly dominant over all subsequent reflections and reverberation. The speaker is not completely smooth and flat in the top end, but that quibble aside, it projects you into the recording venue like few others. With a good orchestral recording and in the right (somewhat restricted) listening position, it is closer to being there than you might have thought possible. The listening room around you is quite nearly gone, replaced by the recorded venue. Decades ago, Roy Allison pointed out definitively to the audio world that woofers belong in cornersnot just subwoofers but woofers. Unfortunately, a full-range speaker in a corner tends to develop colorations from the wall loading and has imaging difficulties from early reflections. Enter the TacT concept: Woofer in the corner, digitally time-delayed main speaker out in the room, the TacT RCS 2.2X doing the crossover at 200Hz and DSP in-room response correction of the whole thing. The particular speakers used are not the point, but it was a pleasure to realize Allisons vision with his own speaker. The result is a completely coherent system that combines the imaging of outin-the-room speakers with the bass of corner-loading, nearly eliminating the effect of the listening room. Hearing is believing.
50
NEIL GADER
Plinius 9200 integrated amplifier $4095 (pliniusaudio.com) ATC SM20-2 speaker $5500 (atc.gb.net) REL Britannia B3 subwoofer $2195 (sumikoaudio.net) Accuphase DP-57 CD player $4900 (accuphase.com) Plinius CD-101 CD player $4495 (pliniusaudio.com)
linius electronics and ATC speakers are two companies that have figured strongly in my reference system, but the competition has been steadily closing in and this venerable duo was lately looking a bit long in the tooth. For this writer the last half of 2005 will be remembered as the moment both responded to the challenge con brio. With the introduction of the Plinius 9200 integrated amplifier and the ATC SCM20-2 compact monitor speaker, liquidity and transparency were lovingly restored as the rules of the day. At a conservatively rated 200Wpc the Plinius 9200 is more settled in the mids and plainly quieter (the noise floor has been lowered) than in either of its previous 8150/8200 iterations. Always a sprinter in terms of transients and dynamic responsiveness, the latest version has removed the vestigial sting that sometimes crept into the treble on hard transients, without sacrificing perceived speed and energy. At the other end of the frequency range, bass definition has been improved and now matches the class-leading bass extension that the Plinius has always possessed. Still a great value, especially in light of the newly improved phonostage that is still standard equipment. In another fit of evolution and true intelligent design, British-based ATC has further refined the venerable SCM20SL. The warmish coloration in the mid/upper bass has been exorcisednon-parallel sidewalls and a stiffer composite cabinet are the main heroes here. The significantly extended soft-dome tweeter is all new for this model, having been adapted from ATCs futuristic flagship, the SCM70SL. The net result is an openness and honesty that trumps even the substantial gifts of its forebear. Mind you, this is not a full-range loudspeaker, but its excellent response into the midbass makes it a prime contender for pairing with a world-class subwooferanything less would undermine the prodigious charms of this studio-caliber monitor. That theoretical subwoofer would first and foremost need to speak with the same voice as the SCM20-2, i.e., with authority as well as speed and subtlety. The REL Britannia B3 (the smallest of three models designed for both music and movies) fills the ATCs dance card like few pairings outside of Fred and Ginger. Optimizing the REL for the satel-
lite and room takes a bit of experimentation, but the rewards are well worth the effort. The B3 doesnt overlay its own personality on the music. At times it doesnt seem to be doing much of anything. When theres no deep bass, youll want to check whether the B3 is plugged in. But when it gets the call, the B3 unleashes the dogs with response that is at once spectacular, naturalistic, and nearly limitless. Its expansiveness almost redefines the scope and scale of the listening space. And it never becomes the center of attention like lesser subwoofersthe music remains the central event. As with all REL subs it doesnt high-pass the main speakers, so youll need to be certain they have the intrinsic oomph and dynamism to run full-range. Finally I would be remiss in not mentioning a pair of CD players that sprinted across the finish line in a dead heat. Both the Accuphase DP-57 and the Plinius CD-101 were surpassingly musical performers with distinctive personalities. The former, soothingly warm, refined, and naturalistic, sang like a rare acoustic instrument. The latter, rhythmically propulsive, was a bit cooler yet stunningly dynamic and transparent. Both of these players left me in the same quandary I often found myself in analogs olden days, when trying to choose between phono cartridges. LP junkies always had at least a couple on hand. In a perfect world Id own both of these CD players, too.
52
WAYNE GARCIA
Redpoint Audio Model B turntable $11,000 (redpoint-audio-design.com) Artemis Labs LA-1 linestage and PL-1 phonostage $2850 and $3350 (aydn.com) Balanced Audio Technology VK-55 amplifier $3995 (balanced.com) Kharma Ceramique Reference Monitor 3.2 speaker $21,500 (gttgroup.com)
hough its only a few years old, Redpoint Audio seems destined for great things in analog. The companys Model B, a 150-pound, 3-pod design, has been my reference for the better part of the past year, and it is easily the finest-sounding turntable Ive used. Thats not to say Ive heard em all, or that a few of the finestsuch as the Rockport and Walkermight not be better. But when paired with the Tri-Planar VII arm (and Im sure others, as well), the Model B delivers music against a devilishly low noise floor, with a huge dynamic spectrum, terrific weight, exceptional resolution, and magical spatial qualities. Record after record has been not just a revelation, but tremendously fun and satisfying. Another relative newcomer, Artemis Labs was my surprise discovery of the year. The handmade LA-1 linestage and PL-1 phonostage are tube-driven components, and they sound distinctly so in the best sense of that phrase. Extremely airy and holographic, this gear brings a great sense of physical shape and presence to instruments and voices. And while these designs also excel at harmonic, textural, and dynamic nuance, and have an effortless sense of dynamic projection, whats harder to describe is the sheer spine-tingling beauty and aliveness the Artemis gear brings to music. The companys first amp is in the worksstay tuned. While Balanced Audio Technology makes many fine
components, and Ive heard and reviewed my fair share of them, the one that most recently captivated me is not one of the companys biggest or most expensive efforts, but the relatively small (50 pounds), relatively low-powered (55 watts), and relatively affordable ($3995) VK-55. After more than ten months of pretty constant use this sweet-honey of an amp continues to impress with its inherent ease and musicality. While it doesnt have the kind of etched detail some audiophiles crave, and the bottom end doesnt have ultimate reach and impact, its warmth, natural textural and harmonic qualities, and open, airy presentation are very satisfying. Its got what I call musical detail, in that everything comes through in a way that serves the musical whole, allowing you to enjoy and become immersed in each performance. Im not sure if I have anything new to add to Jonathan Valins Golden Ear comments about the Kharma 3.2 in Issue 139, or his full review in Issue 140. But Im so smitten by this small, two-way, floorstanding design, and it has been such a great source of musical pleasure as well as an invaluable evaluation tool this past year, that for me to not give it a Golden Ear for 2005 would be criminal. Granted, I have a small room, but Ive always preferred small-to-medium sized speakers to behemoths. To these ears, most big speakers (with the exception of Maggies and Sound Labs), sound like big speakers. Despite their ability to create life-size images, scale the largest dynamic peaks, plumb the deepest bass, and move massive amounts of air, the big guys rarely sound like real music to me. Im too aware of driver discontinuities and other electro-mechanical events at work. The thing thats so great about the 3.2 is that it has the kind of single-driver coherence you get from a Quad, but itll play rock or anything else at lifelike levels, and has as good a 40Hz bass response as anything going. In addition, the 3.2 creates a remarkably large and deep soundstage (if not the height of a larger speaker), is transparent to whatever is placed before it, and capable of a dazzling array of instrumental layers, textures, and colors.
54
ROBERT HARLEY
Wilson Audio MAXX 2 loudspeaker $45,000 (wilsonaudio.com) Balanced Audio Technology VK-600M SE amplifiers $7995 to $23,000 (balanced.com) Naim Nait 5i integrated amplifier $1350 (naimusa.com) Shunyata AC power-conditioning system Hydra-8: $1995; Hydra-2: $395: Power cords: $1995 (shunyata.com)
fter hearing the MAXX 2 in five different systems and rooms, including my own for the past eight months, Im convinced that this is one of the worlds great loudspeakers. It has never failed to sound anything less than spectacular despite the wide number of places and electronics with which it has been partnered. More telling, perhaps, is that after eight months of daily listening I continue to be amazed at what this loudspeaker can do. Rather than revealing flaws that become increasingly apparent, long-term familiarity has, instead, deepened my appreciation of the MAXX 2s achievement. It may seem ludicrous to call a $45,000 loudspeaker a bargain. But when compared with many of the stratospherically priced systemsincluding Wilsons own $135,000 X-2 Alexandria the MAXX 2 holds its own in this world-class company, and at a fraction of the price. BATs VK-600M SE somehow manages to combine seemingly unlimited dynamic expression and center-of-the-earth bass solidity with the midrange immediacy and transparency of a low-powered minimalist design. I wont belabor the sonic description since my full review appears in this issue, but suffice to say that the VK-600M SE is special indeed, and when used with the MAXX 2, brings out that loudspeakers bottom-end resolution and dynamic potential.
Weve long touted Naims integrated amplifiers in these pages, but its impossible to heap too much praise on this musical marvel. This Nait 5is musicality demands that we shout its virtues from the rooftops. This is not just a staggeringly great amplifier; its $1350 price makes it, in my view, the greatest bargain in hi-fi today. The latest iteration in the long-running Nait series, the 5i delivers greater output power (50Wpc) and an even more refined sound than its predecessors. The 50Wpc rating should allow the 5i to drive a wider range of loudspeakers, overcoming a perceived shortcoming of the 5is lowpowered progenitors. (The Nait 2, which I reviewed in 1989, delivered just 18Wpc. But what an eighteen watts it was.) The Nait integrated amplifiers are special because they sound like music, not hi-fi. They have a gorgeous rendering of timbre, a relaxed and spacious sound, and an engaging musicality that instantly makes me forget Im listening through a playback system. Used within its power limitations, the Nait 5i is as good asand in some ways better thansome five-figure separates. Although Ive only recently installed the Shunyata products in my system, their effect on the sound is so dramatic that Ill award them a Golden Ear in advance of my full review. The products include the Hydra-8 and Hydra-2 AC conditioners and Anaconda Helix and Python Helix AC cords. Used together, they elevated my system to a new level of transparency, resolution, spaciousness, and bass definition. Removing the Shunyata products threw their effect into sharp relief; with stock AC cords and no conditioner the sound became hard, flat, twodimensional, lacking bloom around individual instruments and sounding more like a collection of sounds than a musical expression. Ill have more to say in the upcoming review, but be alerted: This is one serious, though hideously expensive, AC-treatment system.
56
H P S WO R K S H O P
$5500
$4250 $4700
$3200
AMPLIFIERS
ASR Emitter II Model 2005
his amplifier not only joins the rank of the great classics of audio design, like, say, the Audio Research D-150 and Reference 600s, but also actually advances the art in its fiendishly clever integration of a battery-powered linestage into the amp itself. It sounds as if there is no linestage at all in the circuit. The battery-powered linestage is, I am sure, partly responsible for the vanishingly low noise floor of this high-
powered, solid-state component. If there is a new wave in high-end sound, and I maintain there is, it lies in those componentslike the Dynavector XV-1S moving coil, the VPI Scoutmaster Signature, and ASRs own battery-powered Basis phonostagethat have so lowered the noise floor that we, the listeners, are able to hear much more deeply into the recorded soundspace. But it isnt just the lowering of the noise floor that accounts for some of this amps magic; it is also the reduction of what Lew Johnson (of connie-j) calls
the grunge. You can decrease the noise floor of a given component and still hear above that its electronic or mechanical signature. In the case of tubes, we have called this tube rush, and in solid-state gear we have heard it as a kind of subtle electronic hash or fine-grained sandiness or electronic glaze. I came at this backwards when I noted the way the Emitter allowed a listener to hear through both the compact disc and the analog LP in a new way, without their usual seemingly inherent sonic signaturesthe kinds of anom-
WWW.THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM
99
H P S WO R K S H O P
alies you just learn to listen around. Their absence was startling in the case of the best CDse.g., Mercurys two-disc set of The Composer and His Orchestra and the XRCD transfer of The Planets from the Decca/London original. The best discs didnt sound digital in the way we have all come to dread. I just wish I knew, technically, how the designer Freidrich Schfer accomplished this. Especially since his amps contain two of the solidstate bad boysop amps and no fewer than 20 MOSFETs, in the past, sure indicators of rocks in the sonic belfry. Since I wrote that review, I have gotten hold the of a second ASR (on loan, naturally) and assigned it the task of driving the bass towers of the Nola Grand Reference, thus replacing the Antique Sound Labs Hurricanes. The 200-watt Hurricane monoblocks were more than an acceptable match with the woofer systemfour 12-inch ported drivers per channel that operate below 40Hzsurprisingly so, and in contradistinction to the usual mythology about tubes and deep bass. Once the second ASR was in place, the shortcomings, comparatively speaking, of the Hurricanes became obvious: an overly romantic mellowness in the 30-to-40Hz range and just enough tube grunge to create a slightly veiled masking effect. With the ASR on the woofer towers, not only was there an articulation and purity in the bottom frequencies (well down toward the lower 20Hz mark), but we could now hear deeper into the stage, getting even more ambient information from the recording site and a much clearer picture of the relative size of instruments from bass drum to bassoon. Some of the improvement was actually audible in the harmonics well above the woofers rangeand I mean well above. There was a richer field of harmonic information past the middle frequencies. The principal gain in ambience retrieval came in two ways: (1) with an enhanced sense of the actual depth and delineation of real space from front to back, and (2) in our ability to hear the sounds of the acoustic shell surrounding players in a real space, i.e., the walls of the stage
sounding as instruments are being played. This furthers the sense that you are in that space with the players instead of listening to a replica of the original sound. (I am assuming here that those of you who are serious listeners will have damped the sidewalls of your music room to minimize their interplay with the hall sounds.) As we discussed originally, because of the absence of a separate AC-powered linestage we have been able to plug both phonostages and CD players directly into the ASRs battery-operated input, and, when it strikes our fancy, to compare both balanced and unbalanced outputs if the gear in question has balanced outputs. This has given us a much clearer picture (see our notes on CD players below) of the real capabilities of the new generation of digital playback gear. And, again, as noted, we found that using the balanced inputs does make a difference in further lowering the perceived noise floor of the playback gear and, to our ears, in improving the tonal balance of the sound, perhaps simply because we can hear more deeply into the soundspace. Oddly, methinks, the top octaves become sweeter, more dimensional, and seemingly better at the rendition of dynamic contrasts. The ASR does have a sonic character, and that is a yin-like darkening of the original. It is certainly not as neutral as say the best of the early Bill Johnsondesigned tubed amplifiers, nor is it as Symphony Hall (Boston) golden in sound as the best conrad-johnson work. But it doesnt sound like either solidstate or tubes, a distinction even the audio neophyte can usually make instantlyin this respect, the ASR is essentially colorless. It has so much output power (greater, I would think, that the nominal 275 watt-per-channel rating) that it has the ability to float effortlessly over the most intense fortissimos I can throw at it (and dont think for a moment I am not expert at this). Put all of this together and you, perhaps, can see why I am wrung in the withers over the yin of its character. Mechanically, things are a bit more
complicated. And the ASR is a bit kinky. It is best to turn it off if you arent going to be around for extended periods of time, and best, if you are going to be around but not playing it, to let its batteries recharge (they are good for 100 hours of play) and to be careful not to send transient pulses through it, lest you shut it down. Also, it sounds best after it has been in the operating positionthat is, at full powerfor 30 or so minutes. Oh, yes, we have begun to test its abilities with other speaker systems. From the field reports I hear, the ASR can drive even a difficult and cantankerous load, such as the big Wilson speakers.
(SEE FULL REVIEW, ISSUE 152, PP. 104119)
f you do not insist on overtaxing this unit with high playback levels on lowsensitivity speakersthose, say, with less than 95 or so decibels of measured sensitivityyoull be in for the same surprise as I was. Up until the Sapphires, SET amplifiers struck me as having a similar sonic signature despite the design differences of their individual circuits. That is to say, SET amplifiers had a soft bottom octave, a somewhat protuberant and romantic midbass, a trs sweet midrange, and a vanishing top octave. Perhaps in a narrow band of the midrange, they sounded purer, more alive, even a shade faster than they did elsewhere in the frequency range. Now it seems that the more recent work with the better SET designs has licked this characteristic commonality and that SETs are finally coming into their own, if we can find good-enough high-sensitivity speaker systems to take advantage of their strengths. (Some veterans of the audio wars may remember how a five-watt amp could drive the bejeezus out of the biggest and best designs in the latter days of the mono LP.) With a speaker system both flat and highly sensitive and with a not-so-sensitive but highly neutral speaker from Audio Physic, the Caldera, I have been playing single-ended games.
WWW.THEABSOLUTESOUND.COM
101
H P S WO R K S H O P
The star performer so far, and one of the best-sounding amplifier of any tubed provenance, is the Wyetech, which has a simply phenomenal bottom endtaut, articulate, and dynamic (even on low-sensitivity designs)and an airy, uncolored top octave that wont sound ugly even when you push it into clipping, though it does exhibit a slight sizzle and minor tearing at extremely high levels on speakers it wasnt meant for (on the Caldera, for instance, the range of reproduced dynamics really suffers, but the Sapphires bejeweled sonic strengths still shine through). If you must view these words as anything, look at them as a sneak preview. I know how good this amplifier isbut what I want to do before writing about it again is spend much more time on the appropriate high-sensitivity speaker systems. If a high-powered amp (say 100 watts or more per channel) could be made that was a sonic duplicate of this, it would immediately become, in my estimation, a reference standard in tube design. (REVIEW TO COME)
INTEGRATED TURNTABLES
VPI Super Scoutmaster Signature
here are, I do not doubt, bettersounding turntables to be found, or, put rightly, turntables less resounding, but I wonder if any are to be found any that combine performance and cost to the extent that the Scoutmaster Series does. The Scoutmaster is Harry Weisfelds bargain design that has evolved through three separate incarnations, each one more refined and better balanced than the last. I do not intend to delineate the individual changes to each model (you can do that yourself courtesy of VPIs Web site), but I think I should, to give a context, mention some of what is going on with the Signature. Its arm is still the JMW 9-inch offspring of its 12-inch uni-pivoted brother. In the arms last two iterations, Nordost interconnects (whose sonic effects we described in an earlier assessment) were added, first to the arm itself
and, in the newest version, to its junction box. The result, which will surprise no one familiar with what the Nordost can do, is less veiling, and, obviously, greater transparency, and, to these ears, a more natural tonal balance. The JMW-9, now raised to the Signature level, finally has a real anti-skate device instead of the awkward twistedwire arrangement of olde. The amount of internal dampingagain to reduce resonancehas been increased and, for the first time, there is external damping (in the form of the arms stainlesssteel tubing) as well as somewhat higher mass, thus allowing the use of lighter cartridges. For the table itself, there is a more refined motor drive (same as in the HRX), a better belt system (four black nitrates, replacing the oft-unreliable beige-colored slider of the previous version). There is also a periphery ring that holds down the outer lip of the discand it really works without getting in the way of the cartridgeand a center clamp. (Id also recommend the SDS speed control, which adds $1000 to the arm/tables modest $5500 cost.) In and of themselves, these refinements may not seem, on paper, all that impressive, but each contributes to the audibly smoother and more neutral sound we get from this combo (and, no, guys, the arms improvements dont begin to put it in the same league as the Kuzma air-bearing straight-line trackers). The new drive belts are not as prone to slipping, and thus speed variations, as those on the older versions of the table; the periphery clamp minimizes the torsional distortion that occurs thanks to the raised outside edges of most LPs, while the center clamp holds down the raised center of most LPs, and the added damping supposedly makes the sound far smoother. I dont know how to quantify each of the differences because I have not heard them added to the basic design one at a time. What I do know is that the thing, as it has evolved, has become less and less a creature with its own sonic signature and, thus, more and more transparent in the reference system. In many
aspects of its performance, it exceeds the best sound in tables available a decade or so ago. But not every last one. What would you get for more money? One hopes better isolation from acoustic feedbackwe first used ours on Arcici racks, where it needed extra isolation to prevent acoustic breakthrough. Then, of late, we have been playing with a new toy from the designers of an electron-microscope suspension system that just may be the last word in what the Vibraplane designers started years ago. We certainly could expect more precise speed control, just maybe more sonic solidity in the middle frequencies, and perhaps the kind of awesome thunder in the 30Hz region one gets from the better Clearaudio designs. But the Signature has considerable dynamic jump (as do all VPI designs), and a solid if not perfectly articulated bottom octave (below, say, 30Hz). It has a wonderfully musical authenticity and many analog lovers probably arent going to feel the need to spend more for diminishing sonic returns.
MOVING-COIL CARTRIDGES
Dynavector XV-1S
his is a five-star moving-coil design. I have little else to say about it, since it is the best of these babies I have encounteredever. I hear no serious flaws. I hate to say this, but, in the here and now and until I hear something more lifelike and better, I can hear no flaws at all. (One of HPs Laws of High End goes like this: You cant imagine sound better than the best in the here and now until you encounter it.) However, I have loaded the cartridge into a 47k ohm input, and prefer that setting. I also have found, at that setting, a tracking force between 2.6 and 2.8 grams to be optimum (depending on the arm you use). Otherwise, before the cartridge actually mistracks, it sounds stressed and compressed in the top octaves on fortes. The importer has waxed furious over this trackingpressure recommendation since he believes that force should be what the
104
H P S WO R K S H O P
manufacturer/designer recommends, which is in the 2.1-gram range. Perhaps, as he suggests, this would work if the cartridge were loaded way, way down below 47k, as he also suggests. I wonder, though. I have never found a correlation between input loading and tracking force, but I can see how, if the top end is rolled off, which usually happens with very low impedance inputs, you might not hear all the effects of lowered tracking force. (Perhaps to prove his point, the importer has supplied a Dynavector designed and approved moving-coil step-up device, which I havent yet got around to evaluating. There are an upcoming cartridge survey and several seemingly promising designs on hand, most of which we havent extensively tested yet.)
Benz Micro LP Ebony
he best-sounding transducer Ive heard from that company whose past products have always left me wanting more. This one, mated with the right arm, is quintessentially musical.
ACCESSORIES
n turning to accessories, we have a wealth of choices to nominate for a Golden Ear. I could have discussed, as I did before, the Cambre Core isolation racks, which hadI think inexplicably given their looksa genuinely positive effect on the sound of the amps I placed upon them, or the co-called Magic Sticks (more accurately and much more pompously, the State Technology Room Collimating Pillars), which Ive feared writing about since I cannot correlate their performance with any known explanation of what they do (and believe me what they do is revelatory, but why, why, why?). Then again, we have the small but significant Clearaudio test device that helps you set the speed of your turntable quite accurately and with a minimum of fuss, courtesy of its blue laser light. (Its called the Clearaudio Speedstrobe and consists of
a test disc and a small blue strobelight, the combo priced, by the way, at $150way above what something similar might set you back at a local Radio Shack.) Instead, I chose the Nordost Thor, perhaps because it is one of the new wave components that reduce both the noise and grunge level of any audio system. It is called an audio-distribution system, and it was developed in conjunction with Isotech, a British firm expert in the design of such devices. The Thor isolates each device you plug into its eight inputs from any other device, all of which remain invisible to each other. (It also has surge protection and is, happily, fused, and without, Nordost says, ill sonic effects.) There is also the matter of its topographya silver-plated copper circuit board, Nordost Valhalla mains leads, and insulation from current conductors to ensure, the company says, maximum power transfer. More mystically, at least in Nordost president Joe Reynolds description of it, it works a kind of quantum-level voodoo, radiating a signal into the powerlines and into all the devices fed into the Thor. This, he says, lowers the noise floor. He is loathe to say what is supposed to be happening, since the auteur behind the quantum treatment is almost mum about what is going on, but, supposedly the device produces an ordered spin on all the electrons transiting the circuitry. It is treated, Reynolds, said with a proprietary electro/magnetic field. It works, Reynolds says, suggesting some of its most striking effects will be seen on a video image. That notion I havent put to the test just yet. So what is there to say about the Thor? Well, pending a more detailed examination, lets just call it a grungeeater. It removes background noise, textures, and other common systemic quirks that are easy to hear once removed, but hard to define perhaps because our audio language is still evolving in this areain conventional terms, partly because they are so endemic.
MULTICHANNEL GEAR
EMM/Labs CD/SD playback deck
W T
ithout a doubt, the state-of-the-art turntable for SACD discs, and in its sexy industrial look, close to art. Also, simplicity itself to use.
EMM/Labs DAC-6e
his is the latest revision of the Six Series (just released this autumn), and as expected, considering the author (wizardly designer Ed Meitner), an interesting refinement and improvement upon the previous version. What is most notably striking about the e version lies in its tonal balance and reproduction of harmonic overtones. Prior to this, the DAC sounded noticeably whitish (too much yang) up high and bleached out on strings, without much in the way of instrument dimensionality as one ascended unto the heights. With the e, the overtones are much more complexly delineated and, dare I say, enriched, with the net result of a sound more suggestive of the best things about good analog. The potential of the high-definition digital system, as incorporated in DSD encoding/decoding, stands nakedly revealed.
Edge Electronics G AV55 multichannel modular amp
ach module, in this version, is capable of a 500-watt output, or so say the specs (we did not measure). I believe it. Why? Because, first off, we evaluated the 200-watt version, which was not at all to my liking, since it seemed to leave the power-hungry Magneplanars (in the Super Maggie system) wantingthat is, dynamically compressed and prone to high-frequency distortion. No such thing with the G Series 55, which handles the biggest moments (say, those in the new RCA Verdi Requiem by Harnoncourt) as if it were throwing rose petals to the listener. We have mostly been using Edge Electronics with the multichannel system in various combinations (Signatures, others in the G series), but here we have both the virtues of simplicityin setup and an almost creamy sound, and that from solid-state. (REVIEW TO COME)
106
H P S WO R K S H O P
for the best that DSD has to offer and it is essential for any basic SACD collection.
Verdi: Messa da Requiem. Vienna Philharmonic, Nicholas Harnoncourt (cond). Arnold Shoenberg Choir. Soloists. Recorded live, Musikverein, Vienna. Friedemann Engelbrecht (prod); Michael Brammann (eng). RCA Red Seal. 2 CDs.
ou need listen no further than the opening Richard Strauss ditty re-scored for organ, timpani, and brass ensemble whose long-winded title, here translated from the German, is Solemn Entry of the Knights of the Order of St. Johnto hear what a spectacular sonic thriller this recording is. The miking is held to a minimum and the resultant sound is very much as I heard it from the pews of St. Ignatius Loyola church on Manhattans Upper East Side during the recording session. If you have a system that goes all the way, and with plenty of subwoofer power for the .1 channel to capture the lowest notes of the churchs justly famed organ, you can almost exactly replicate the performance and St. Ignatiuss glorious and warm reverberant acoustic. It was designed to be a showcase
until Harnoncourt the Upwith ofnow, Ive alwaysinfoundIrae is Requiem,dull topure point extinction, but the Verdi he comes alive a vengeance. The Dies a blockbuster, and simple, with a bass drum that will either bend the beams in your walls or destroy your subwoofers. Or maybe both. Oh, yes, the brass choir is placed at an admirable distance behind you, making full use of the multichannel capabilities. Thrilling sonically and, from an orchestral and choral standpoint, a wonder to be-hear. But, not all the soloists are, shall we say, to the manor (or manner) born. If you are at all skeptical about the strengths of multichannel or of high-resolution DSD encoding, these two discs will go a long way toward making you a believer.
108