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Luxman M-800A power amplifier

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 10:19:00 EST

Founded in 1925, Luxman has long been one of Japan's most highly regarded audio manufacturers. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, Luxman's tube preamplifiers and power amplifiers occupied the top shelves of high-performance audio retailers, and to many older American audiophiles, the Luxman name is as familiar and esteemed as those of such storied American brands as McIntosh and Marantz. Luxman's combination of rich, warm sound, superb build quality, and indelible industrial design made its products fully competitive with other brands then considered among the world's best.

Listening #71

Fri, 14 Nov 2008 10:38:00 EST

Here's how God makes audiophiles: He starts with several million blank brain cells, then programs each one, individually, to function as either a love for one single aspect of music reproduction or a hatred for another. There are over a thousand such cells—far too many to list here—but theologians and audio reviewers have worked together to compile this list of the Top 20, which, just like real life, contains a little more love than hate:

Naxos: From 320kbps to Lossless to Blu-ray

Thu, 13 Nov 2008 15:11:00 EST

DNM 3D Six preamplifier

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 21:05:00 EST

It isn't enough to say that engineer Denis N. Morecroft is one of contemporary audio's few visionaries: He's one of a very few mature designers whose passion for doing things a certain way hasn't abandoned him in the least, and whose well-argued convictions seem stronger than ever. Thus, as others cave in to commerce—the tube-amp designer who offers a solid-state product just to help his dealers fill a price niche, the source-component manufacturer who rails against digital audio one day and starts cranking out CD players the next—DNM Design remains the likeliest of all modern companies to stay its course.

Vincent Audio KHV-1pre headphone amplifier/preamplifier

Wed, 12 Nov 2008 20:38:00 EST

You know me. I'm not perzackly an audio slut, but I am easy. When Audio Advisor's Wayne Schuurman called me to pitch the Vincent KHV-1pre tube-transistor headphone amplifier, he pretty much had me at "tube" and "headphone." But I wasn't familiar with Vincent Audio.

HeadRoom/Cardas Fat Pipe headphone cables

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 15:13:00 EST

I got a phone call from HeadRoom's Tyll Hertsens. "Dude! You have got to hear the rewiring job we've done on the '701s. We hardwire a four-conductor Cardas cable directly to the drivers, eliminating at least two solder joints—then we put a Cardas ¼" plug on the end."

Cary Audio Design CD 306 SACD Professional Version SACD/CD player

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:45:00 EST

Some reviews take longer to gestate than others. But in the case of Cary's CD 306 SACD Professional Version SACD/CD player, it has taken me literally years to get this review into print. I had visited Cary's impressive facility in North Carolina just before Christmas 2005, when I'd been playing the high-resolution master files of some of my recordings at an event being promoted by Raleigh high-end dealer Audio Advice. Cary's head honcho, Dennis Had, had been playing me music on a system featuring his Silver Oak loudspeakers, with the front-end one of the first samples of the original CD 306, playing discs through the two-chassis Cary SLP 05 preamplifier that Art Dudley ended up reviewing in the September 2006 issue. "Now that's a product I'd like to review!" I enthused, looking inside the CD 306, and I drove back to Brooklyn with a review sample.

Recording of November 2008: Guitars

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:43:00 EST

Technically, the title of McCoy Tyner's new album, Guitars, is a misnomer. It should have been called McCoy with Strings, given that four of his five stringed collaborators are guitarists, while the fifth "guitar" is Béla Fleck's banjo. However, the mildly misleading title is pardoned, given the performances that this jazz titan of the keys delivers in what is, for him, a completely new setting. Although he enlists a stalwart rhythm team (old friends Ron Carter on bass and Jack DeJohnette on drums), Tyner negotiates these 14 tunes with another chordal instrument for only the second time in his storied career. His first and only other guitar-oriented session was in 1982, when he invited Coltrane-worshipping Carlos Santana to record with him on Looking Out.

Ayre KX-R line preamplifier

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:03:00 EST

I can't think of a product that was as eagerly anticipated as was Ayre's KX-R preamplifier ($18,500). Following in the footsteps of Ayre's MX-R monoblock amplifier, a Stereophile 2007 Product of the Year, and milled, like the MX-R, from a 75-lb billet of aluminum, the KX-R also shares with its monoblock stablemate the Ayre ethos of zero feedback and fully balanced operation. But what really caused the buzz was the declaration by Ayre founder and chief designer Charles Hansen that the KX-R, with its use of a technology he calls Variable Gain Transconductance (VGT) to control the volume, would set new standards for signal/noise ratio.

Elements of Our Enthusiasm

Tue, 04 Nov 2008 11:02:00 EST

At the end of August, we watched as the number of registered users in our online forums quickly ticked past the 10,000 mark. Ten thousand registered users! While it might prove interesting to learn just how that number breaks down into men and women, old and young, subjectivists and objectivists, or any of several other demographic and philosophical divides, that would only obscure the point: In our online forums, there are over 10,000 members who are eager to share their enthusiasm for music and hi-fi. What a beautiful thing!

Fooled by Fauxharmonic?

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:57:00 EST

Can audiences tell the difference between a computer-generated orchestra and the real thing? Just how far have digital sampling and loudspeaker technologies advanced?

KR Enterprise VT8000 MK monoblock power amplifier

Mon, 03 Nov 2008 11:14:00 EST

Based in the Czech Republic, KR Enterprise is headed by an occasionally gruff Dr. Riccardo Kron and his American-born wife, Eunice, who operate the company out of a partially abandoned factory that was once part of the state-owned Tesla High Vacuum Technology facility in Prague. The Swiss-funded company is unique in that it manufactures both amplifiers and the tubes that power them. KR's tubes have found favor with other amplifier makers as well—especially the 300BXS, electrically identical to a standard 300B but rated at 25W in class-A.

The Science of Subwoofing

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:42:00 EST

There was a time, as recently as 40 years ago, when frequencies below 100Hz were considered extreme lows, and reproduction below 50Hz was about as common as the unicorn. From our present technological perch, it's too easy to smirk condescendingly at such primitive conditions. But just so you're able to sympathize with the plight of these disadvantaged audiophiles, I should tell you that there were two perfectly good reasons for this parlous state of affairs. First of all, program material at that time was devoid of deep bass; not because it was removed during disc mastering but simply because there wasn't any to begin with. The professional tape recorders of the day featured a frequency response of 50–15kHz, ±2dB—just about on a par with the frequency performance capability of a cheap 1988 cassette tape deck.

Recording of August 1991: Tribute

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:40:00 EST

Damn. Just checked my private stash of pure, uncut, Peruvian superlatives, and they're just about out. Bummer. Worst scene a record reviewer can play. But what'd I expect after listening to 6½ hours of Jarrett's Sun Bear Concerts, then Dave Holland's Extensions, then the Hot Spot soundtrack, then Taj Mahal's new Mule Bone (the Natch'l Blues Rides Again!), and Elvis Costello's Mighty Like A Rose, not to mention Columbia's new box of nearly four prime hours of previously unreleased vintage Dylan? Bad action, mama.

Buy Cheap Speakers—Have Fun!

Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:38:00 EST

"Be like my friend Frank. He imagines that he's purchased certain products—right now he's imagining that he bought a pair of hard-to-get English speakers which he has read a review of but hasn't heard. This is ideal, since the speakers can sound better and better as Frank imagines more and more. When he tires of these speakers and gets excited about something else, he doesn't have to trade them in. He only needs to start imagining the next product." That was Sam Tellig's friend Frank, back in March of this year. No one could have said it better, but I have a followup.

Music Served: Extracting Music from your PC

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:34:00 EST

Two primary questions face an audiophile who wants to integrate a PC into his high-end system. First is which file format to use for ripping the music from his CDs (see sidebar). The second question is whether to put the computer in the same room as the audio system, or in a remote room. The former makes things much easier, but sound quality will be compromised by the noise of the computer's fan and hard drive. (Some computers, such as the cheap Mac mini, have fans that rarely turn on and are therefore inherently quiet.) Remote location of the computer eliminates the noise problem, but introduces more system complexity.

Fried Compact 7 loudspeaker

Fri, 24 Oct 2008 11:30:00 EST

Fried Products Corporation's Compact 7 is a two-way, standmounted loudspeaker with a 1" ring-radiator tweeter and a 7" woven glass-fiber–coned mid-woofer in a "line tunnel" enclosure. Its cabinet is substantial and well made, with handsome real-wood veneers. The speakers come in mirror-imaged pairs, the tweeters offset toward the inside. The Compact 7 is unusual in that its mid-woofer is above its tweeter, which is likely related to the line-tunnel bass loading. Fried insists that the speakers be placed at least 28" above the floor, which dictate I followed.

The Fifth Element #50

Thu, 23 Oct 2008 15:00:00 EST

The positive aspects first: absolutely world-class packaging, presentation, design, build quality, and owner's manual. Open the box and take out the cloth-bagged F80, and there's little question that lots of talent and money went into making the whole thing work. My guess is that Meridian was not aiming at the gestalt typically projected by high-end audio components, but rather at products from Apple. You could slap an Apple logo on this thing and no one would bat an eyelash—the look and feel are that good.

Surrealistic Sound

Wed, 22 Oct 2008 01:21:00 EST

Add some equally romanticized tube electronics to the above examples and you take the sound into the surreal. Tubes, like Vaseline smeared on a lens, push the aural representation even further from reality. The sonic naturalist can usually still enjoy and tolerate this, but also recognizes its failings.

MBL 6010 D preamplifier

Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:11:00 EST

Don't be confused by the MBL 6010 D's oddly baroque, even retro looks. Behind all the glitz—the oversize, perfectly finished, black-lacquered faáade; the two big, solid brass knobs plated with 24-karat gold; the ornate lettering; and the incongruous digital volume display—resides a thoroughly modern, remote-controlled, unusually versatile, and well-thought-out solid-state preamplifier. Not that the 6010 is a new design. It's been around for a long time, and the current "D" iteration is at least five years old.