Table of contents for Mar-13 in Stereophile

A Reviewing Life It’s been 30 years since I began work on my very first equipment report, of the Goldbug Brier moving-coil phono cartridge, for Hi-Fi News & Record Review. That review appeared in the British magazine’s May 1983 issue; I have lost track of how many equipment reviews I’ve written since then, but my review of the Vandersteen Treo loudspeaker in this issue is at least my 500th. I touched on the subject of reviews in my Richard C. Heyser Memorial Lecture, “Where Did the Negative Frequencies Go?,” which I was invited to give on October 21, 2011, at the 131st Audio Engineering Society Convention, in New York City (see http://tinyurl.com/cx9j4j4). I had mentioned in that lecture that my education in electronics and audio was based exclusively on tubes.…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@vcable.us. Please note that it is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless this is associated with a seminar or similar event. CALIFORNIA ∎ Sunday, February 17, 2–5pm: The Los Angeles and Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting at Scott Walker Audio (1215 N. Tustin Avenue, Anaheim). Four different systems will be demonstrated, each utilizing electronics from Simaudio, loudspeakers from NOLA, and cable and accessories from Synergistic Research. Costa Koulisakis and Robert Scranton of Simaudio, Carl Marchisotto of NOLA, Peter Hansen of Synergistic, and Michael Baskin of Michael Baskin…

Halle Berry or Hallelujah? While visiting KEF in England (see last month’s column), I received an e-mail from the proprietor of Headphone Commute.com, a website devoted to electronic, experimental, and instrumental music. My correspondent, who prefers to remain anonymous, described a plan to release a compilation album called . . . and darkness came, all proceeds from which to be donated, for Hurricane Sandy relief, to two charitable organizations: Doctors Without Borders and the Humane Society. Today, less than a month later, the album is complete and includes work from many of my favorite artists and composers—Jóhann Jóhansson, Max Richter, Nils Frahm, Hauschka, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Ólafur Arnalds, Clint Mansell, Lawrence English, and Peter Broderick are a few of the more recognizable names—which makes it sort of incredible that my own…

It’s a poet’s dream—a lone figure silhouetted against wide-open western skies, strapped to a single telephone pole among an endless string of similar poles running across endless miles of unbroken expanse of deserted grasslands. It was an obvious symbol of loneliness, especially to a songwriter with a broken heart. The juxtaposition of a man so alone, yet so close to wires humming with a mass of human interaction was the emotional hook. Poetic license changed the name of the actual location from Washita to Wichita. And with its gentle, winsome melody and timeless central couplet, “I need you more than want you/and I want you for all time,” it’s become one of the world’s most irresistible pop songs. Glenn Campbell made it a hit in 1968, the year Jimmy Webb…

I measured the Peachtree decco65 using Stereophile’s loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 “As We See It,” www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/108awsi/index.html) for both analog and digital inputs. To test the decco65 as a digital processor, I took the measurements from its Preamplifier Output jacks. Hooking up my MacBook Pro to the Peachtree’s USB input, I used the Apple USB Prober utility to identify the decco65 as “XMOS USB Audio 2.0,” XMOS being the supplier of the USB data-receiver chip. Operational mode was confirmed as “isochronous asynchronous,” and the sample rates handled extended up to 192kHz with 24-bit word length. The coaxial S/PDIF inputs locked to data with sample rates up to 192kHz—as did, rather surprisingly, the TosLink input. All the digital inputs preserved absolute…

Description Solid-state FM receiver with four S/PDIF digital input (two coaxial, ywo Toslink), two paitrs of analog inputs (one phono, one line), one pair of linelevel analog outputs, and two pairs of loudspeaker terminals. Maximum output power at 1% THD: 120Wpc into 4 ohms (17.8dBW), 60Wpc into 8 ohms (17.8dBW). Minimum load: 3 ohms per channel. Peak output current: 30 amperes. Frequency response: 1.5Hz–90kHz, ±3dB, into 4 ohms. THD+N: 0.003%, 1W, 1kHz, 4 ohms. Line input impedance: 11k ohms. Phono input impedance: 47k ohms in parallel with 150pF. Phono input sensitivity: 2.5–7mV nominal cartridge output range. RIAA accuracy: ±0.25dB, 50Hz–15kHz. Power consumption with no signal: 14W. Dimensions 8.5" (216mm) W by 3.5" (88mm) H by 12" (305mm) D. Weight: 13 lbs (5.9kg). Serial number of unit reviewed CTR-049. Price $2995.…

In one sense, Richard Vandersteen has been the victim of his own success. His Model 2 loudspeaker, 1 introduced at the 1977 Consumer Electronics Show, put his company on the map but proved a hard product to improve on. Based on the idea that the HF and midrange drive-units should have the minimal baffle area in their acoustic vicinity, both to optimize lateral dispersion and to eliminate the effects of diffraction from the baffle edges, the Model 2 also used a combination of a sloped-back driver array and first-order crossover filters to give a time-coincident wavefront launch. But of perhaps equal if not more importance to the commercial success of the Model 2 and its variants—more than 80,000 pairs had been sold by the turn of the century, and the…

Analog Sources Linn Sondek LP12 turntable with Lingo power supply, Linn Ekos tonearm, Linn Arkiv B phono cartridge. Digital Sources Ayre Acoustics C-5xeMP & DX-5 universal players; Apple 2.7GHz i7 Mac mini running OS10.7, iTunes 10, Pure Music 1.86; Shuttle PC with Lynx AES16 soundcard & dual-core AMD Athlon processor running Windows 7, Foobar 2000, Adobe Audition 3.0; Logitech Transporter, dCS Debussy, Arcam FMJ D33 D/A converters; Ayre Acoustics QA-9 USB A/D converter. Preamplification Liberty B2B-1 phono preamplifier; BSG Qøl Signal Completion Stage; Classé CP-800, Pass Labs XP-30 preamplifiers. Power Amplifiers Classé CT-M600, Lamm M1.2 Reference (both monoblocks). Integrated Amplifier Devialet D-Premier. Loudspeakers BBC/Rogers LS3/5a, KEF LS50, Sony SS-AR2. Cables Digital: DH Labs Silver Sonic. AES/EBU: AudioQuest Coffee, Belkin Gold USB. FireWire: AudioQuest FireWire 400 (prototype). Interconnect (balanced): AudioQuest Wild.…

I measured the Spendor S3/5R2 loudspeaker with DRA Labs’ MLSSA system, using a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the speaker’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 mike for the nearfield responses. The S3/5R2 is very similar in size and basic topology to the S3/5se, which Art Dudley reviewed for Stereophile in July 2003. You can find my measurements of the earlier speaker at www.stereophile.com/content/spendor-s35se-loudspeakermeasurements. The S3/5R2’s voltage sensitivity is specified as 84dB/W/m, but my estimate was just 81.7dB(B)/2.83V/m, which is essentially the same as the 2003 version. However, as with the earlier speaker, the S3/5R2’s plot of impedance magnitude and phase (fig.1) reveals it to be a very easy load for the partnering amplifier. The magnitude drops below 8 ohms only in the lower midrange, and…

Description Powered subwoofer in sealed enclosure with remote control. Drive-unit: 18" forward-firing fiberglass Rohacell-laminate cone with 3" voice-coil and 39.7-lb magnet. Inputs: front panel, USB, microphone (mini XLR); rear panel, mono LFE (RCA), R&L balanced XLR and RCA, Ethernet, RS-232, IR, 12V trigger, speaker (bare wire, banana plugs, or spade lugs). Outputs: rear panel, line-level pass-through (RCA & XLR), high-pass output (RCA & XLR), video output (RCA), RS-232, S-video. Front-panel controls: Volume, Crossover, Auto EQ. Rear-panel controls: Line Level, Speaker Level, High-Pass Crossover (80 or 100Hz), Power On. Acoustic output: 105dB SPL at 10" at 1% THD. Frequency response: 14.4–120Hz, ±3dB. Automatic room-compensation passband: 15–200Hz. Low-pass filter: Adjustable frequency (40–199Hz in 1Hz increments), slope, phase (0–180°). High-pass filter: 80 or 100Hz, 6dB/octave. Total harmonic distortion: 0.5%. Amplifier: class-D, 1250W RMS.…

John Marks was very impressed by the Canalis Anima when he wrote about this stand-mounted loudspeaker in his “The Fifth Element” column in the February 2013 issue.1 The Anima, which costs $3250/pair without stands, combines, in a rear-ported enclosure, a 3.4" metal-dome tweeter with textile surround and a 5" anodized aluminum-cone woofer. It is very similar to the earlier Sonics by Joachim Gerhard Anima (favorably reviewed by Wes Phillips in July 2007), replacing that speaker’s marine-grade plywood cabinet with one made of bamboo plywood. With the speakers placed on their matching stands, which place the listener’s ears level with the top of the woofers rather than slightly above the tweeters, John Marks wrote that “the Animas struck a wonderful tonal balance that had only a slight emphasis of the treble,”…

If You Will Dare Rock reunions can be irresistible. Who doesn’t want to see their favorite band just one more time? Yet the first generation of rock stars, like the giants of classical music and jazz before them, are now part of history. More frightening sights are yet to come. While it doesn’t have the shock value of seeing Mick and Keef, desiccated as apricots, strutting through “Brown Sugar” one more time, the once–flannel-clad, hairy, anti-arena rock dudes of the 1980s and ’90s (and girls in their Doc Martens, black leather, and tats) have also begun to spin toward the storybooks. And now comes news that, 22 years after their split, Paul Westerberg and Tommy Stinson, two members of one of late punk/early indie rock’s most seminal acts, the Replacements,…

Bruce & Robert Editor: I had to think for a while about Robert Baird’s article about the concert in the Meadowlands (December 2012, p.162), and his comments in general about Bruce Springsteen. Bruce has given a lot of himself to the world the past 40 years. I cannot find anything that Mr. Baird has given but a small part of a small magazine. Robert, you should stick to writing about never-was and never-will-be musicians, because that is who you are: a never-was and never-will-be writer. —Emerson Pitts emo5@aol.com Spot on, Robert Editor: I don’t often make it to the last page of Stereophile, but I’m sure glad I did in December. I’ve been waiting for an honest assessment of Bruce’s last decade, and I’ve finally found it. Having been a…

Analog Comparisons & New Phono Products How was last fall for you? Mine was crazy. I traveled much of October: the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest one weekend, emceeing Chad Kassem’s Blues Masters at the Crossroads Blues Festival the next, and the week after that, appearing at two Audio Advice stores, in Raleigh and Charlotte, North Carolina. From there I traveled to Los Angeles to attend a 30th-anniversary celebration for Tron at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, where, standing in front of the screen, I talked to a theater full of Tronnies about how we’d produced some of the sound effects for the original film. Experiencing the historic space from that perspective (and, earlier, in Sid Grauman’s office) was a fleeting but unforgettable experience. I had to leave the post-screening party early to…

M&Ms . . . mmmmm . . . Growing up as an audiophile in the 1950s, I always aspired to owning Marantz equipment, and finally attained that status when, late one night in 1974 in Greenwich Village, a friend found a Model 8 amp sitting on a pile of discards on a curb. He quickly ran for his car, and scarfed up the amp and a pair of Acoustic Research AR1 speakers. All turned out to be in perfect working order, though their appearance reflected their history of ill-use. The speakers went into his machine shop—but I got the Model 8! Few products have ever given me so much pleasure and pride; Marantz will always occupy a warm spot in my heart. Since then, Marantz and I have gone our…

Whether one was surprised, in 2010, by the success of Peachtree Audio’s iDecco may have more to do with age than anything else. My peers and I wondered, at first, who would want their high-end integrated amps to come bundled not only with digital-to-analog converters but with iPod docks, of all things; at the same time, younger hobbyists wondered who in the world still wanted their integrated amps to contain phono preamplifiers. (Respect for the elderly, myself especially, prevents me from adding “and mono switches.”) Color me chastened. In digital audio, time waits for no one—and so it goes here. The iDecco, which sold for $999—see www.stereophile.com/content/peachtree-idecco-da-integrated-amplifier—is no longer in the company’s lineup, and while Peachtree continues to put iPod docks in various of their amps and preamps, today they’re…

Analog Sources Garrard 301, Thorens TD 124 turntables; EMT 997, Artemis TA-1 tonearms; Ortofon SPU, EMT TSD 15 70th Anniversary pickup heads; Miyabi 47, Denon DL-103 cartridges. Digital Sources AudioQuest DragonFly USB DAC; Apple iMac G5 computer with Apple iTunes v.11.0, Decibel v.1.0.2 playback software; Sony SCD-777ES SACD/CD player. Preamplification Auditorium 23 Standard (SPU version), Silvercore One-to-Ten, Hommage T2 step-up transformers; Leben RS 30EQ phono preamplifier; Shindo Masseto preamplifier. Power Amplifiers Shindo Corton-Charlemagne, Fi 421A. Loudspeakers Audio Note AN-E/SPe HE, DeVore Orangutan O/96, Quad ESL. Cables USB: AudioQuest Carbon, Nordost Blue Heaven. Interconnect: Audio Note AN-Vx, Shindo Silver. Speaker: Auditorium 23. Accessories Box Furniture Company D3S rack (source, amplification components); Keith Monks record-cleaning machine; Peter W. Belt Cream Electret.…

I used Stereophile’s loan sample of the top-of-the-line Audio Precision SYS2722 system (see www.ap.com and the January 2008 “As We See It,” www.stereophile.com/asweseeit/108awsi/index.html) to measure the Bel Canto C7R’s analog and digital inputs. To test the C7R as a digital processor and phono preamplifier, I took the measurements from the Line Output jacks. (I didn’t test the FM tuner’s performance.) Because the C7R has a class-D output stage, the presence of ultrasonic noise in its output might affect the Audio Precision analyzer’s performance, so I placed an Audio Precision AUX-0025 passive low-pass filter between the dummy load and the analyzer’s input. This filter has a maximum input level of ±200V peak, and rejects noise above 200kHz without affecting the measured performance. Starting with the phono input, this offered a maximum…

Description Four-way, reflex-loaded, floorstanding loudspeaker. Drive-units: 1" (25mm) ceramic-coated alloy-dome tweeter, 4.5" (110mm) tri-woven composite midrange cone, 6.5" (165mm) tri-woven fiber-cone woofer, 8" (203mm) carbon-loaded cellulose-cone subwoofer. Crossover frequencies: 80Hz, 900Hz, 5kHz. Crossover slopes: 6dB/octave, first-order. Frequency response: 36Hz–30kHz, ±3dB. Sensitivity: 85dB/2.83V/m. Impedance: 6 ohms, ±3 ohms. Dimensions 43" (1092mm) H by 10" (254mm) W by 15" (381mm) D. Weight: 80 lbs (36.4kg). Finish Wood veneer. Serial Numbers of Units Reviewed 1086, 1087. Price $5995/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 50. Manufacturer Vandersteen Audio, Inc. 116 W. Fourth Street, Hanford, CA 93230 Tel: (559) 582-0324. www.vandersteen.com.…

The Spendor S3/5R2 loudspeaker reminds me of Art Dudley. My friendship with Art began more than 25 years ago, long before either of us joined Stereophile. Frequently, we would sit down to discuss music, guitars, and audiophiles. Art didn’t have much patience for a certain category of audiophile who would evaluate an audio component based on how many points on their sonic checklists they could tick off. Image specificity? Check. Soundstage depth? Check. Lower-bass extension? Check. Art thought these guys would have a much better time if they’d just sit down, listen, and determine if an audio component was capable of “playing music.” He felt that many audio components fit this category; eg, the Roksan and Linn turntables, many single-ended-triode tube amplifiers. Art reviewed the Spendor S3/5se in July 2003.…

Analog Sources Rega Planar 3, VPI TNT IV turntables; Immedia, Syrinx PU-3 tonearms; Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood, Koetsu Urushi cartridges. Digital Sources Creek Destiny, Lector CDP-7T CD players. Preamplification Creek Destiny, Vendetta Research SCP-2D phono stages; Audio Valve Eclipse line stage. Power Amplifier Audio Research Reference 110. Integrated Amplifier Creek Destiny. Loudspeakers Dynaudio Excite X12, Epos M16i, Monitor Audio RX6 Silver. Cables Interconnect (all MIT): Magnum M3, MI-350 CVTwin Terminator, MI-330SG Terminator. Speaker: Acarian Systems Black Orpheus. Accessories Various by ASC, Bright Star, Celestion, Echo Busters, Salamander Designs, Simply Physics, Sound Anchor, VPI.…

Velodyne’s Room-Management Software, Digital Drive Plus (Windows only), uses two main screens to run the DD-18+’s automatic equalization routines. First is the Frequency Response and Parameter screen. This is split into two windows, the first displaying the room’s frequency-response curve, the second showing the parametric EQ graph. To the right of the two screens is a dialog box that lists adjustments of volume, low-pass crossover frequency, subsonic filter frequency, subsonic filter slope, phase, and polarity. Just below the two screens is a second box where the user can select one of three equalization routines: Self EQ, Auto EQ, and Manual. A line at the bottom right tells you whether or not the DD-18+ is synced to a computer. Self EQ is run with the audio system off and the subwoofer…

A recent survey of my teenaged nephew and his friends turned up a number of musical trends both predictable and surprising. It sent them into paroxysms of disbelief and laughter when the old-man uncle asked whether they liked any guitar bands, like, say . . . Green Day. Guitar bands, to say the least, ain’t cool. Pop-oriented hip-hop artists like Wiz Khalifa are. So are white, pop-rock “country” singers like Jason Aldean, whom teenaged boys, even in the age of piracy, continue to spend money on, be it downloads or a CD to rip. Like everything else in the music business these days, Nashville has changed. What labels remain now chase hit singles rather than solid albums. The loudness wars there are over, with overprocessed sound the clear winner. And…

US: LEXINGTON, KY John Atkinson A press release in late November announced that loudspeaker manufacturer Thiel Audio had been acquired by a private equity firm based in Nashville, TN. Kathy Gornik, Thiel’s cofounder—see www.stereophile.com/content/sisters-sound-kathy-gornik—has left the company. According to the release, new Thiel CEO Bill Thomas has indicated that the brand focus will continue to be on premium quality, time-coherent loudspeakers, with long-time Thiel employees Brad Paulsen, Gary Dayton, Lana Ruth and Rob Gillum all remaining onboard. “We identified Thiel as a brand with an unmatched heritage in performance audio and it is our intent to invest in the company’s infrastructure, strengthening the engineering department first and foremost,” stated Thomas. Thiel has just launched the CS2.7 and the CS1.7 is in the final stages of development, rounding out the CS…

A Good Enough Time is Guaranteed For All Let’s say you’re lucky enough, or just plain old enough, to have bought a copy of Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood on January 12, 1966. Let’s say you’re lucky enough or just plain smart enough to have held on to it and kept it in perfect shape for the past 47 years. And let’s say it was one of the first 500 copies, which the author signed. If so, congratulations: For once in your life, even the smuggest collector can’t claim that his copy of a book is “better” or more valuable than yours. Of far greater importance, of course, is the artistry between its covers: The person who, in 2013, buys an ink-and-paper copy of In Cold Blood is guaranteed the…

How Music Works, by David Byrne. 352 pages. San Francisco: McSweeney’s, 2012. Hardcover, $32. Measuring 7.1" by 1.6" by 9.1" and with an attractive paper-over-board cover, David Byrne’s boldly titled new book resembles the textbooks often found in public-school classrooms. If not for the author’s brief lapses into street talk—he uses the word shit just a bit too freely for the youngest readers—one gets the impression that Byrne wouldn’t mind having his book taught in elementary school. He quotes from Oliver Sacks’s brilliant Musicophilia: “For the vast majority of students, music can be every bit as important educationally as reading or writing.” At his best, Byrne writes in a smooth, easy, conversational tone, and supports his ideas with anecdotes from his own career. As such, the book is as much…

Description Solid-state integrated amplifier with built-in D/A converter and USB interface. Line-level analog inputs: 1. S/PDIF digital inputs: 2 coaxial, 1 optical. Sampling rates supported: 44.1, 48, 88.2, 96, 176, 192kHz. Word lengths supported: 16, 24. Jitter: <3ps measured at master clock. Main amplifier output power (<0.5 % distortion): 65Wpc into 8 ohms (18.1dBW), 95Wpc into 4 ohms (16.8dBW). Frequency response: 20Hz-50kHz ±0.1dB. Headphone amplifier output power: 100mWpc into 8 ohms. Headphone amplifier output impedance: <<0 ohms. Preamplifier maximum output: 7V RMS/11.2V peak. Dimensions 14.8" (377mm) W by 4.8" (111mm) H by 11.5" (292mm) D. Weight: 28 lbs (12.7kg). Finishes High Gloss Black; Rosewood, Cherry, add $100. Serial number of unit reviewed 107687. Price $999. Approximate number of dealers: 175. Manufacturer Peachtree Audio, 2045 120th Avenue NE, Bellevue, WA 98005.…

As a young music lover, I never knew there were such things as separate preamplifiers, amplifiers, and FM tuners. All I knew was that if I wanted to play music from my CD player, hook up my VCR to my stereo, or listen to the radio, I needed that magical device: a receiver. It was all I ever wanted. It’s my guess that many folks out there want good sound but can’t be bothered with separates. All those folks know when they walk into a store or look online is that they need a receiver. And in this digital age, when many people listen to music from their computers, a receiver with a good onboard DAC that can also take a straight USB input is pretty much a necessity. However,…

Digital Sources Benchmark DAC1 HDR; Bel Canto e.One CD2 transport, e.One DAC 3.5VB Mk.II DAC, e.One VBS1 power supply; Sony Vaio laptop running JRiver Media Center 17, Bel Canto Light Link USB-S/PDIF bridge. Analog Sources Clearaudio Ovation turntable & tonearm, Clearaudio Talisman V2 cartridge. Phono Preamplifier Clearaudio Basic+. Power Amplifiers Rogue Audio M180 monoblocks, Audio Research Reference 150. Loudspeakers Revel Performa F30. Headphones Sennheiser HD600. Cables Digital: Stereovox HDVX coaxial, Silver Sonic D-110 AES/EBU. USB: Cardas Clear. Interconnect: Sain Line Systems Pure (balanced, singled-ended). Speaker: Kimber Kable BiFocal-X. AC: Sain Line Systems Reference. Accessories Ready Acoustics room treatments, ASC Tube Traps, Butcher Block audio table.…

I used DRA Labs’ MLSSA system and a calibrated DPA 4006 microphone to measure the Vandersteen Treo’s frequency response in the farfield, and an Earthworks QTC-40 for the nearfield and spatially averaged room responses. As I suspected from my auditioning, the Treo is relatively insensitive. My estimate of the Treo’s voltage sensitivity was a low 82.5dB(B)/2.83V/m, the same as the BBC LS3/5a. However, the impedance remains between 6 and 10 ohms for almost the entire audioband (fig.1), with a benign electrical phase angle. The minimum magnitude is 5.5 ohms, at 26 and 75Hz; the Treo will be relatively easy for the partnering amplifier to drive. The slight discontinuity just below 200Hz in the impedance traces implies that there is some kind of resonant mode in this region. Investigating the panels’…

Description Two-way, sealed-box, stand-mounted loudspeaker. Drive-units: 0.9" (22mm) wide-surround, fluid-cooled, soft-dome tweeter; 5.5" (140mm) ep39-cone woofer. Crossover frequency: 4.2kHz. Frequency response: 75Hz–20kHz, ±3dB, anechoic. Frequency range: –6dB at 60Hz in-room, typical. Sensitivity: 85dB/W/m. Impedance: 8 ohms nominal, 6.2 ohms minimum. Dimensions 11.9" (305mm) H by 6.4" (165mm) W by 7.4” (190mm) D. Weight: 10.1 lbs (4.6kg). Finishes Black Ash, Cherry, Light Oak, Dark Walnut. Serial numbers of units reviewed 206B08317/8. Price $1595/pair. Approximate number of dealers: 26. Manufacturer Spendor Audio Systems Ltd., G5 Ropemaker Park, South Road, Hailsham, East Sussex BN27 3GY, England, UK. Tel: (44) (0)1323-843474. Web: www.spendoraudio.com. US distributor: Bluebird Music Limited, 500 Witmer Industrial Estates, Niagara Falls, NY 14304. Tel: (416) 638-8207. Fax: (416) 638-8115. www.bluebirdmusic.com.…

Subwoofer technology is moving fast, with automated room equalization and system integration now a reality. A wave of new products has appeared in the past five years, all using different approaches to solving the problems of optimizing subwoofer response in listening rooms. Subwoofers—including the Digital Drive 18+’s predecessor, the DD-18, and the Revel Ultima SUB-30 (see my review of the latter at www.stereophile.com/subwoofers/1104revel/index.html)—first tackled the problem of room optimization by displaying the room response on a PC and having the user adjust virtual sliders. More recently, JL Audio’s Fathom f113 (www.stereophile.com/subwoofers/907jl/index.html) and Fathom f212 (www.stereophile.com/subwoofers/jl_audio_ fathom_f212_powered_subwoofer/index.html), removed the user from the setup process: JLA’s automatically self-adjusting firmware routines used calibration microphones, internal signal generators, and processors to optimize these subs’ frequency response for a single room node, with no graphic…

Analog Sources Linn Sondek turntable with Lingo power supply, Ittok tonearm; Spectral cartridge; Day-Sequerra FM Reference Signature tuner. Digital Sources Bryston BCD-1 CD player; Bryston BDP-1 digital transport with USB-2 flash drives, external USB hard drive; Bryston BDA-1 D/A converter; Netgear WN-350 wireless router connected to BDP-1 via Ethernet. Preamplifier Bryston BP-26. Power Amplifiers Mark Levinson ML-2 (monoblocks), No.334, No.27.5. Loudspeakers Quad ESL-989; B&W DB1, JL Audio Fathom f113, Velodyne DD-18 subwoofers. Cables Digital: Bryston, Hosa AES/EBU; Wireworld Starlight coaxial S/PDIF. Interconnect: Mark Levinson Silver, Red Rose Silver One, Totem Acoustic Sinew single-ended, Pure Silver, Bryston balanced. Speaker: QED X-TUBE 400, Pure Silver R50 biwire double ribbon, Ultralink Excelsior 6N OFHC, Coincident Speaker Technology CST 1. Accessories Bryston Universal Silver BR-2 Remote, Torus RM-20 Power Isolation Unit; ATI SLM-100 analog…

Miyajima Laboratory Zero Mono Editor: Thank you again, Michael, for an honest and accurate review of the newest Miyajima Mono cartridge. The Zero utilizes some technology used in the Kansui stereo cartridge. These changes over the already loved Premium Mono BE make for the best cartridge I have ever heard, be it stereo or mono. One customer who already owned a BE but purchased a Zero cursed me out for not getting any sleep the first night he installed it, as he played LP after LP through the night! Thanks to Stereophile for keeping the analog light on, bright and clear. Robin Wyatt Robyatt Audio Spendor Audio S3/5R2 Editor: It was refreshing to read Robert J. Reina’s excellent advice to audiophiles: Listen to the music, forget the analysis, forget the…