Tabla de contenidos para July/August 2023 en The Absolute Sound

Best Sound (cost-no-object) A tie. The Wynn Audio room with Vimberg Tonda D/Karan Acoustics phono, preamp, amp, Kalista digital source and turntable with Xquisite cartridge, and Crystal Cable Da Vinci wiring; and the Stenheim Reference Ultime Two with VTL phono, preamp, amplifiers, dCS DAC, and VPI turntable with Lyra cartridge. Best Sound (for-the-money) The complete Yamaha Flagship HiFi Series 5000 system. While the cost was higher than some lower-priced offerings at the show, this was the best sounding system at the lowest cost that I heard. Most Significant Product Introduction The new and improved Spin-Clean Record Washer kit for new and budding vinyl-playback audiophiles to start cleaning their records. Most Significant Trend Diversity at AXPONA 2023. I saw more youngsters, women, and people of color than at previous shows. The…

It should by now be joyously apparent to you, o lucky subscriber, that you have at last found the answer to your prayers: an honest, forthright, not particularly technical hi-fi magazine that will set you really straight on the best equipment currently available (to excite that slightly jaded golden ear of yours). Uh-huh. Well, maybe honest, forthright and not particularly technical: the rest, however, is quite another matter. Several years ago, when this publication was not even a gleam in our publisher's eye, he and the undersigned had a brief but lively correspondence dealing with the possibility that two persons, each having “normal” hearing, might percieve a given sound in different ways. I argued, perhaps somewhat simplistically, that there might even be genetically determined differences in sound perception, analogous to…

Full Circle First read TAS: 1977 First wrote for TAS: 1984 “Nice room dividers!” I complimented. “Not room dividers,” my friend corrected. “Magnepan Tympani 1D loudspeakers!” I'd never heard of them, or of the Audio Research electronics he'd just powered on. Or of The Absolute Sound, a digest-sized magazine lying on the coffee table. Back then I thought I was a “hi-fi buff ” and that my AR-3as were, if not the pinnacle, a pinnacle loudspeaker. He put on the copy of David Bowie's The Man Who Sold the World I'd brought down to New York from Boston and played the title track. It sounded as if real instruments were playing in his room, hidden behind the “room dividers.” I'd never heard anything from a stereo system remotely as convincing…

First read TAS: 1981 First wrote for TAS: 1995 On a winter day in 1981, I visited a medical school friend in lower Manhattan. Despite a lack of disposable income, the student, named Kaminsky, had always been an aficionado of the finer things—a good leather jacket, a bespoke guitar, a decent pair of British monitor loudspeakers. Unfortunately, Kaminsky's two-year-old had deformed one of the KEF's dome tweeters and there was no music that day. However, on the cluttered coffee table was a digest-sized booklet with a fanciful illustration on the cover. From my first glance at the densely printed pages of The Absolute Sound, I was smitten. For the remainder of the afternoon I largely ignored Kaminsky and his family. Once home, I immediately subscribed and devoured the equipment and…

How I Came to Write for TAS First read TAS: 1973 First wrote for TAS: 1992 From my early teenage years, I've been fascinated by audio gear. Of course, outside of being tempted by stuff that sounded good, measured well, and looked cool, I didn't really have a reliable standard of comparison. That changed in 1972-73, when my audiophile friends at the University of Chicago dragged me off to the Near North Side to audition a veritable trove of the latest goodies at the apartment/showroom of a singular hi-fi salesman and cut-rate bon vivant named Basil Gouletas. As most of you already know (since I've written about it many times before), it was listening to a piano recording through the Magneplanar 1Ds in Basil's digs—and being fooled into thinking I…

Blue Note's Tone Poet series is releasing so many high-quality reissues that it's possible for record buyers to overlook some real gems. Take The Remarkable Carmell Jones for example. The record by the great trumpeter first came out on the Pacific Jazz label in 1961, and it's seldom been reissued. If you haven't heard the recent Tone Poet reissue, you're in for a treat, if not a revelation. Carmell Jones (1936–1996) isn't as well-known as some of the other artists on the Tone Poets series, but he was a singular voice on the trumpet who ranked with the best players and could play ballads brilliantly. Recorded in June 1961, this performance finds Carmell and his associates at their very best, playing a cool-toned, blues-based jazz. The music is easy to…

This issue marks 50 years since Harry Pearson published the first issue of The Absolute Sound and sparked a revolution in audio and music reproduction. Harry couldn't have known in 1973 that the audio industry was on the cusp of a once-in-a-generation transformation, let alone that the magazine he created would be a driving force behind that transformation. That first issue—more a stapled booklet than a magazine—laid the foundation for what The Absolute Sound would very quickly become—a cultural touchstone for an entire generation of music enthusiasts. It is impossible to overstate TAS' influence on the rise and trajectory of high-quality audio beginning in the early 1970s. TAS was the place where dreams were created and sometimes realized, where worthy manufacturers rose from garage operation to establishment players, where a…

Best Sound (cost no object) I'll name three systems, in no particular order. Axiss Audio's demo of the Gauder Akustik DARC 200 loudspeaker driven by Soulution electronics with a Transrotor turntable and Air Tight Opus One cartridge. Spectacular dynamics, hard-hitting bass, quick, clean, non-fatiguing, and just plain musical. The Acora Acoustics VRC loudspeaker ($218,000) driven by VAC Statement electronics sourced by an Oracle Delphi Reference turntable and cabled with Cardas throughout. The sense of presence and immediacy was stunning, as was the huge three-dimensional soundstage. MBL's recently upgraded 101 Mk.II loudspeaker driven by all-MBL front end and electronics delivered the usual dose of MBL virtues—a stunning sense of lifelike presence, top-to-bottom coherence, huge soundstage, and tremendous bass extension and impact. Because of the 101's omnidirectional nature every seat in the…

Best of Show Best Sound (cost no object): Among larger rooms, I never felt the joy of sonic and musical discovery as keenly as with the Acora/VAC system. Within smaller rooms, kudos go to the extraordinary new Magico S3. Best Sound (for the money) No contest here. The MoFi SourcePoint 8 speakers driven by a Hi-Fi Rose integrated amp/DAC/streamer cost less than $7k for an entire—and entirely mind-blowing—system. Most Significant Introduction A tie between the MoFi SourcePoint 8, which shows just how much terrific sound $3k can buy, and the Magico S3 ($45k), which leverages the company's latest design and testing technology to create a new sweet spot in the line. Best Joke In a packed elevator, Muzak wafting from the ceiling, an attendee quipped, “This is the best sound…

First read TAS: 1973 First wrote for TAS: 1980 It's a bit shocking to realize it has been 50 years since I read the first issue of The Absolute Sound. I got it from a friend who knew that I read other audio magazines, was interested in audio technology, and thought the reviews in mainstream audio magazines like High Fidelity and Stereo Review were little more than technical data dumps. Like me, he was a fan of the technical writing in Audio but thought the subjective reviews in Stereophile were far more useful than any amount of technical testing and specifications. It took me only a few minutes to realize that TAS was truly different. Harry Pearson (HP), its editor and principal reviewer, wrote with the cutting edge of the…

First read TAS: 1978 First wrote for TAS: 1983 I have always been entranced by musical sound. Literally always—my first memory is of a rehearsal in my parents' living room of the Beethoven “Archduke” Trio, heard when I had just turned three. I asked to be taught to learn to read music around the same time and to start the violin. My fourth birthday present was a quarter-sized violin. My interest in reproduced sound also arose early: my parents gave me a record player of my own when I was five, and I spent hours fixated on the sound of orchestras coming out of it. I started playing in the Nashville Youth Symphony when I was eight, and I have been playing in orchestras ever since—and trying to get that…

Our Mission First read TAS: 1973 First wrote for TAS: 1999 I hope you have some kind of story like this. Because The Absolute Sound exists to support these journeys. As you will see, we take this idea seriously. To explain a bit more: My life changed on February 9, 1964. I was nine years old. That evening, The Beatles appeared for the first time in the United States on The Ed Sullivan Show. I was stunned by the drum and guitar sounds. And I hated the stupid girls for screaming so much that the sound was obscured. An audiophile is born not made. I asked my parents to buy me Meet The Beatles, which had the songs they had played. My dad had a giant mono Bozak speaker, and I…

Two Roads, Both Traveled First read TAS: 1973 First wrote for TAS: 1981 In the summer of 1969, when I graduated from college, I did two things that would alter the course of my life. I saw Sam Peckinpah's classic Western epic The Wild Bunch. By the time I recovered from the experience, I knew in my bones what Emily Dickinson meant when she said, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.” The art form, nay, the very medium itself, was forever transformed. That experience would take me to a doctorate in American Civilization at the University of Iowa, my first job as an assistant professor of literature at the University of Southern California, the first of my…

I KNOW THAT you've been into audio and music since you were a kid, but did you have a formal engineering background before getting involved in the home-audio industry? David Salz: None, but I've been studying industrial design, science, and the history of technology since I was very young. Could you explain how cable-bypass testing is done? I created the term “cable polygraph” to describe cable listening tests that include a true reference that serves as the test control. The reference is a direct connection, also called a cable bypass, which eliminates the cable under test. These tests can be accomplished with a Cable Comparator or manually, by docking components together with adapters to create the reference. Optimal bypass adapters will make the shortest and lowest loss connections, with complete…

OBVIOUSLY, you're going to need professional help setting up a near-300-pound turntable. Your dealer and his crew can do the heavy lifting, setting the large chassis—which houses the on/off and speed-selection controls, the six motors, the DTD bearing, and the subplatter—on a suitably stout stand. Once the dual turntable belts are threaded around the motors' capstans and the outboard DMC-20 motor controller is plugged into the twin RJ45 sockets at the rear of the chassis, the massive X-shaped upper plinth can be set atop the chassis and the 36-pound platter and up to four tonearms carefully installed on it. The TA-9000 Neo comes with its own tonearm-adjustment template for overhang, Atlas 5-pin phono cable with RCA or XLR terminations, counterweight (and additional weight), base mount (for the pre-drilled, adjustable arm…

MoFi SourcePoint 10 Loudspeaker (from Issue 338) Independently of whether a reviewer likes a product, a thorough description of the sound helps a reader to understand if they would gravitate to that sound. Dick Olsher's thoughtful analysis of the sound character of the SourcePoint 10 allows for this assessment. Of course, it would be remiss of me to fail to say I am happy that he likes the speaker! His comments about the tweeter response are spot on. It does have a lift in the extreme treble. This intentional trait is to partly counteract the room response for a tweeter that is a little larger than typical domes and hence more directional in the top octave, combined with the fact that I always recommend that one should never listen to…

Bill Evans: Treasures: Solo, Trio & Orchestra Recordings from Denmark (1965– 1969). Elemental Music (2 CDs or 3 LPs). This treasure trove of previously unheard material, drawn from the private collection of Danish producer Ole Matthiessen, showcases the legendary pianist in remarkably conversational trio settings (with Danish bassist Niels-Henning Ørsted Pedersen and either drummer Alan Dawson or Alex Riel on CD1, bassist Eddie Gomez with Riel or Marty Morell on CD2), with The Royal Danish Symphony Orchestra and Danish Radio Big Band, and performing solo. All are pristine sounding examples of Evans' brilliance. One revelation is the trio with Pedersen and Dawson (an under-recognized master). Their hookup on tracks from ‘65 is breathtaking, highlighted by Pederson's solo on “Someday My Prince Will Come” and Dawson's solo on “Beautiful Love.” Evans'…

Mahler: Symphony No. 4. François-Xavier Roth, Les Siècles. Harmonia Mundi. Mahler once explained to a friend that the function of orchestration is not to create sound effects but to “bring out clearly what one has to say.” This may seem rich coming from Mahler, but it makes the point that a composer uses instrumental sounds as rhetorical tools. François-Xavier Roth has always cared about this sonic rhetoric. As a teenager, he was shocked to realize that Stravinsky's revolutionary Rite of Spring would soon be a century old. Modern orchestras had so thoroughly assimilated the work (helped by the composer's revisions) that its sound world was hard to distinguish from those of Berlioz or Beethoven. How to recover that “shock of the new” when such disparate rhetorics were subjected to the…

How did you come to write and work for TAS? And why? I first started writing for The Absolute Sound in 1984. I'd been a subscriber for years, eagerly awaiting the next issue like it was the Gospel from On High. Its then-unpredictable publication schedule only made us want it more. We would hang on every reviewer's word, especially the no-holds-barred, sometimes acerbic, often transcendent writing of Harry Pearson. He was usually not only dead-on in his sonic evaluations but also invented a new descriptive language for audio reviewing. Do you recall how you met Harry? What were your first impressions of Harry? My dear high school friend, the late, great Bob Reina, was a TAS writer and told me that the magazine was looking for a popular music reviewer.…

SME Model 60 Turntable The SME Model 60 was shown for the first time at AXPONA 2023, although already reviewed by Michael Fremer in Issue 333. Most of its features are covered in that review. The SME 60 with VA Series tonearm is a work of engineering precision and creativity geared toward improving on SME's legacy designs. Based on all indications presented during an explanation of the design, the product is a success. Listening to the SME 60 with VA ‘arm in a system with AVM 8.3 Phono ($13,995), AVM 8.3 preamp ($18,385), AVM 8.3 amplifiers ($44,995/pr.), and Canton Reference 3K loudspeakers ($13,995) connected with Kubala-Sosna cables, showed the analog front-end to be quiet and controlled while tracing the groove with ease. SonoruS ATR10 mkII Tape Deck Scott Walker Audio…

A tie! Though different in technology, the Clarisys Minuet planars, the MBL 101E MkII omnis, the Magico S3 dynamics, the Rockport Atria II dynamics, and the Børresen Acoustics M3 ribbon/cone dynamics all managed the trick of making musicians almost visible—and making music of all types a sonic delight. (Note that the Stenheim Reference Ultime 2 and the Gauder Akustik DARC 200 were very close runners-up.) JV's Best Introductions Magico S3, Børresen Acoustics M3, Gauder Akustik DARC 200…

First read TAS: 1978 First wrote for TAS: 2007 If memory serves me correctly, my first ever exposure to “good sound” was as a boy of eight when I heard a Grundig tube radio. I knew nothing at all about audio back then, but my innocent ears told me that there was something special about its mellow tone. My first serious audio exposure transpired circa 1975 courtesy of Murray Zeligman, a fixture in the Baltimore-Washington DC audio scene. He seemed to know all the major players in the area, including David Berning and Matthew Polk. The latter, as I recall, was exceptionally young looking, but what really stuck in my mind was that slide rule attached to his belt—really geeky. Being an avid Dynakit builder, Zeligman introduced me to the…

Equipment Report Cabasse Murano Alto Loudspeaker When I think of Cabasse loudspeakers, I think “round.” For good reason. Cabasse, from France, has been producing a broad lineup of spherical wireless/streaming active speakers in its Pearl series for years. (I reviewed the Pearl Akoya in Issue 322.) They're available in differing circumferences, but all have been, in one way or another, inspired by Cabasse's long-time flagship The Sphère, truly one of the high end's more audacious loudspeaker designs. That particular four-way-concentric-transducer loudspeaker (active with DSP, too) has been a perennial jaw-dropper since its debut in 2008. But that wasn't the company's first foray into the concentric or coaxial world. Cabasse, which was founded in 1950, has been designing concentric drivers for decades. However, futuristic speaker designs the size of volleyballs are not…

Specs & Pricing Output power: 400Wpc into 8 ohms; 800Wpc into 4 ohms Inputs: Balanced on XLR jacks, unbalanced on RCA jacks. Control: Ethernet via RJ45; 12 VDC trigger input Input impedance: 34k ohms (balanced); 17k ohms (unbalanced) Frequency response: 20Hz–20kHz, +0.1, -0.07dB Signal-to-noise ratio: >102dBr, wideband, unweighted, referred to full power output; >117 dBr, “A”-weighted Gain: 26.4dB Input sensitivity: 2.8V RMS balanced; 2.8 V RMS single-ended Total harmonic distortion: <0.015%, 1kHz, 400W, 8-ohm load; <0.12%, 20kHz, 400W, 8-ohm load Output voltage: 164V peak to peak; 58V RMS Output current: 62A peak Slew rate: 70V/µs Output impedance: <0.01 ohm, 20Hz–20kHz Damping factor: >800, 20Hz to 20kHz, referenced to 8 ohms Dimensions: 17.25” x 9.4” x 24” Weight: 160 lbs. (net); 180 lbs. (shipping) KRELL INDUSTRIES, LLC 45 Connair Road Orange,…

WHILE THE EXTRAS I'm about to recommend enhance the sound of any good turntable, they are unusually felicitous with this great one, audibly improving timbral fidelity, transient speed and clarity, image focus and depth, and soundstage dimensionality. First is the DS Audio ES-001 Eccentricity Detection Stabilizer—Aki Aoyagi's ingenious solution to the age-old problem of miscentered records. Though it requires an extra step prior to playback (and has a hefty $6000 price tag), it is a step well worth taking. As I said in my review, the sonic improvements that the ES-001 makes are consistent and consistently positive. They are almost exactly like the differences you see in a photo that was taken with a camera on a tripod and one that was taken handheld. Blur disappears, focus becomes tack-sharp, colors…

Yo La Tengo: This Stupid World. Matador. You can always count on Yo La Tengo knowing how to begin a record. There was the tender feedback of “Big Day Coming,” the enigmatic build of “Everyday,” and now we have “Sinatra Drive Breakdown.” This Stupid World's opening track sets a steady pulse as the distorted crunch of the guitar drones, laying the groundwork for the muted vocals to swoop in and guide the listener into an immersive, quintessential Yo La Tengo experience. After decades, Hoboken's indie rock luminaries continue to bring something fresh to their distinctive sound. This Stupid World is an invigorating presentation of controlled chaos, the record a gentle push-and-pull of structured songs with warm, electric fuzz and sweet melodies (“Fallout,” “Aselestine”) and sprawling tracks filled with dissonant feedback…

Chet Baker: Blue Room: The 1979 Vara Studio Sessions in Holland. Jazz Detective. In 1979, trumpeter Chet Baker was well past his early 1950s prime, and he would be found dead from a fall from a window less than a decade later. But despite his emotional fragility, decades of addiction, stints in prison, and a mid-career hiatus in the early 70s, a kernel of inner strength allowed him to rally intermittently, sometimes brilliantly. Baker moved to Europe in 1977 and refreshed himself. He cut 21 albums in 1979 and 1980, recorded with Elvis Costello in 1983, and stayed true to his mainstream aesthetic. These impeccably resurrected, previously unissued sessions (released as digital downloads and in double CD and LP packages with photos and essays) showcase Baker's most enduring and endearing…