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S T E R E O • M U LT I C H A N N E L A U D I O • M U S I C

Redefining
Value
Levinson’s NAD’s New
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No.436 Player
Amplifier Wadia
Resurgent!

NHT Classic Three

World’s Best $1k Speaker?

www.theabsolutesound.com
 Contents
February 2007

Cover Story
64 NHT Classic Three Loudspeaker
Chris Martens on an $800 three-way monitor with refinement, resolution, and imaging.

45 High End Returns to its Roots: The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
Jonathan Valin, Robert Harley, and Neil Gader report.

88 Mark Levinson Nº 436 Monaural Power Amplifier

A 35-year tradition of excellence continues, says Sue Kraft.

Equipment Reports
Absolute Analog:
38 London Reference Phono Cartridge
Jonathan Valin on a new reference with an old pedigree.

70 Tannoy Autograph Mini Loudspeaker

Tom Martin gets a solid glimpse of the state of the art.

72 Plinius SB-301 Amplifier

Neil Gader with a sneak preview.

74 NuForce S9 Loudspeaker
Robert E. Greene reports on something different.

80 Wireworld Audio Silver Electra

and Stratus 52 Series Power Cords
Neil Gader plugs in.

82 Pioneer S-2EX Loudspeaker

Bridging the divide between home and studio speakers,
by Neil Gader.

94 Quad ESL-2805 Loudspeaker

Jim Hannon on the latest classic elecrostatic; Paul Seydor comments.

The Cutting Edge

104 Wadia 270se CD Transport, Series 9 DAC,
and 581 CD/SACD Player
Alan Taffel auditions Wadia’s reference and entry-level players.

120 Krell LAT-1000 Loudspeaker

Anthony H. Cordesman on an open challenge to the status quo.

 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

Contents
06 Letters
118 Manufacturer Comment
16 From The Editor
18 Industry News
22 Future TAS
26 Start Me Up
NAD C 325BEE Integrated Amplifier and C
525BEE CD Player; Nuforce P8 preamplifier
Barry Willis and Chris Martens.
35 iTAS
Polk Audio I-Sonic. Robert Harley on the
Swiss Army knife of desktop audio.
120
Music
150 Recording of the Issue
Tom Brosseau: Grand Forks
131 Jazz
The scoop on the newest discs from Charles
Tolliver, Steve Swallow, Exploding Star
Orchestra, Joe Zawinul, and Muhal Richard
Abrams. And, two hybrid SACDs from
Chesky and a 200-gram Horace Silver LP.
139 Classical
Boris Berezovsky tackles Hindemith, Paul
Lewis interprets Beethoven piano sonatas,
35
Simon Rattle and Szymanowski’s Songs of a
Fairy-tale Princess, Ryan Brown on Sacchini’s
Oedipe a Colone, Kronos and Mogwai team
up for The Fountain, and the Capucons
plumb Inventions. Plus, three SACD reviews
and LPs from Speakers Corner.
149 Rock Etc.
Reviews of the latest CDs and LPs from
Ghost, Clinic, Eric Clapton, Vince Gill, Yusuf,
Kellie Pickler, Tartit, Jay-Z, Menomena, and
Neil Young. Plus, the Beatles on DVD-A.
Records of the Year
159 Cast ‘em in stone. Bob Gendron, Andrew
Quint, and Derk Richardson pick 2006’s best
albums.
160 TAS Back Page
160
11 Questions for Michael Hobson of
Classic Records
Neil Gader.
 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
 founder; chairman,
editorial advisory board
Harry Pearson
editor-in-chief Robert Harley
editor Wayne Garcia
executive editor Jonathan Valin
managing and Bob Gendron
music editor
acquisitions manager Neil Gader
and associate editor
art director Torquil Dewar
senior writers
John W. Cooledge, Anthony H. Cordesman,
Robert E. Greene, Chris Martens,
Dick Olsher, Andrew Quint, Sallie Reynolds,
Paul Seydor, Alan Taffel
reviewers and
contributing writers
Soren Baker, Greg Cahill, Dan Davis,
Andy Downing, Jim Hannon, Jacob Heilbrunn,
Sue Kraft, Mark Lehman, Ted Libbey,
David McGee, Bill Milkowski,
Derk Richardson, Don Saltzman,
Max Shepherd, Barry Willis
hp’s equipment setup Danny Gonzalez
web producer Ari Koinuma
Absolute Multimedia, Inc.
chairman and ceo Thomas B. Martin, Jr.
vice president/publisher Mark Fisher
advertising reps Cheryl Smith
(512) 891-7775
Marvin Lewis
MTM Sales
(718) 225-8803
reprints and e-prints: Jennifer Martin, Wrights Reprints
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2007 Absolute Multimedia, Inc., February 2007. The Absolute Sound
(ISSN#0097-1138) is published ten times per year, $42 per year for US residents.
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SACD Better
Letters
Than CD?
As a subscriber who goes back to the very beginning of The
Absolute Sound, I have come to the conclusion that my ears—
occasionally described by friends as “golden”—must have turned
to “dross” (from old age?), because I don’t get it.
I listen to, say, Ivan Fischer’s new recording of Mahler’s Second
Symphony on Channel Classics, and am so stunned by the awesome
sonics of this SACD—and this has happened so often with
other SACDs from Channel, Harmonia Mundi, Pentatone, even
Abbado’s Mahler Sixth on DG—that I can’t believe people are still
debating whether it’s superior to Red Book CDs. Have I suddenly
become deaf ? It’s clearly time for the industry to adopt SACD
for quality music recordings and leave the television, computer,
and movie junkies to argue about other things important to them.
Music lovers should unite behind SACD and inevitably improve it
with time. Further debate will only exacerbate the economic woes
of the industry.
Christopher Mankiewicz
SACD Worse
Than CD?
What can I say about Red Book CD? It’s definitely improving, as
you confirmed with your Meridian CD player review: It “invites a
comparison to a live microphone feed.” Other reviewers in high-
end audio are reporting similar findings. A few highlights: Positive
Feedback’s Robert Levi recently reported that the 20k Metronome
CD system surpassed Ed Meitner’s top-notch gear—even when
it played SACD. Even Levi didn’t think this was possible. Then
there are the Soundstage boys—with the Zanden gear up against
Esoteric’s latest SACD player. The verdict? “With (Red Book)
sounding this good, who needs new formats?” Even Jules
Coleman, a respected on-line reviewer (there aren’t too many),
spends most of his time with digital via the Reimyo CD player,
a big change of heart for an analog-kinda-guy. But his finding
wasn’t aberrant. Even Mr. Analog, Michael Fremer, likes Red
Book, especially after hearing the Zanden system in a recent
issue of Stereophile: “For the first time, I no longer cared about
the format.” Now that’s really saying something. Fremer liked
Red Book almost as much as his big-time reference LP! None of
these reviewers prefers SACD. I don’t know how they feel about
DVD-A, since there are so few titles. SACD can’t fall back on
this excuse.
Oh, well, enough of that. What we might need is a little more
clarity in what we report. You say that DVD-A is “vastly better”
than CD in the previous Letters section of TAS, yet two issues
ago you reported that DVD-A, through the Meridian, was (only)
“a step beyond” its very laudable CD performance. Which one
is it?
 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
And never once have I seen Jon Valin make the statement “SACD
is better than CD,” until now. With the possible exception of the
Mark Levinson-produced recording that he so dearly loved awhile
back. JV has always praised CD, starting in the year 2000 with the
MBL gear.
Maybe it’s the recordings. I listen to Red Book only with
Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, Chesky [discs], etc.—recordings
that have 20-bit dynamic range, even on the 16-bit consumer
release. I’m a very happy listener.
John Harnick
Jonathan Valin replies: While it is true that I had and have
problems with the treble-range noise artifacts of certain SACD
players and SACD discs and did not and do not think that SACD
beats out all other playback media (as Mr. Mankiewicz does, and
many others do), that does not mean that I think CD playback is
superior to SACD. I quote from the very review that Mr. Harnick
mentioned: “The EMM Labs and the Krell [SACD players] share
certain generic virtues: Their overall clarity is markedly superior
to CD, and in the [EMM Labs] DAC6e’s case to vinyl; their dynamic
range and scale is superior to CD and, in the DAC6e’s case
competitive with vinyl; their bass is significantly better defined
and more extended than it is on CD or vinyl; and, minus the noise
problem, their treble range extension and detail is much better
than CD… The EMM Labs is in a class of its own, quite literally. It
simply doesn’t sound like anything else, and what it does well, it
does unparalleledly well. While it doesn’t beat out analog disc or
tape in musical realism, it is competitive on its own terms. I just
wish more SACD software was worthy of it.”
Having said this, let me also note, in defense of Mr. Harnick’s
position, that in spite of its superiority to CD I simply haven’t
found SACD a compelling enough alternative to vinyl to make
it my primary source and that when I listen to digital (and I do
listen to digital once in awhile) I tend to listen to CD, partly
because I have many more CDs than SACDs and partly because
CD playback, as I noted above, has improved enough, both
on the software and the hardware side, to make it a pleasant
alternative to LP.
A Couple
of Mistakes
Reading the November issue of TAS, I unfortunately could not
help noticing a couple of, uhm, errors.
Robert Harley’s reply to John Harnick’s letter is truncated—to
my eyes even before the middle of the reply. Too bad as this is a
very interesting matter and [RH’s] full reply is sorely missed.
Second, I am afraid that the rating boxes on the Shostakovich
SACDs on page 142 are incorrectly placed, because they do not
really reflect the qualifications in the text. The better rating would
actually come closer to my own impression at least of the RCO
Live recording, and intimately knowing the qualities of Everett
Letters
Porter and the PolyHymnia team, I would say that they did
another superb job on this recording.
Nonetheless, a fine TAS issue it is.
Marcel Croese
Wayne Garcia replies: Apologies, Mr. Croese, for RH’s truncated reply.
That error cropped up in pre-press and should have been caught.
Music Ratings
Reversal
In the December issue (page 142, Shostakovich Symphonies
7 and 11), the text seems to indicate that the Symphony No. 7
has the better review, but the music and sonic squares seem to
indicate the opposite. Are they reversed?
Wendell Driggers
Bob Gendron replies: You are correct: The music and sonic ratings were
accidentally switched on the discs when the book went to layout, and
they are the opposite of what they should be. Our apologies.
More Detail on
Sonics in the
Music Section
I am relatively new to the world of hi-fi and enjoy the education
I am getting from reading your magazine. Often I see snippets
of analysis on the sonic characteristics of certain pieces of music
while reading album or product reviews, but I believe significant
value to your readers could be added by offering a section that
went into more detail on what to listen for in certain pieces. For
example, a review of Tom Petty’s new album Highway Companion
mentions “the soundstage is open, wide, and airy.” It would be
educational for me to understand which songs best display these
characteristics, so I know what to look for the next time I am
listening to a new piece of music.
The new section might take one album and go into detail about
two to three tracks [in regard to] what to listen for and what
separates great systems from good systems in reproducing their
sound. This would give newbies like me some insight on what
to listen for and how to better understand what our systems are
doing well or poorly. At the end of some time I believe you will,
on average, have a more skilled reader base which will appreciate
your product reviews even more, since terminology will now
resonate with them from their past experiences.
Rob (last name withheld)
Of Hats and
Headphones
In the November issue Tom Martin complains about a lack of
bass with the Stax SR-001. I used to have the same problem, until
 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
one day I wanted to wear a hat and use the little Stax at the same
time. While trying to get this to work, I discovered that the bass
is actually excellent. I’m not suggesting Mr. Martin should wear
a hat when testing this particular headphone, but that he should
try different positions for the headband. Maybe he just needs a
different size earpad.
Another observation: I’ve now heard several stereo systems,
including my own (modified Audio Note/Avantgarde), that
sound a lot better when the expensive power cords are replaced
with the cheapest non-twisted kind. Same experience with a
friend’s Meridian/Pass Labs/Audio Physic setup. Anyone can try
this at minimal cost. It seems to me that only flawed systems (or
rooms ) need specialist power cables.
Cees Verhoeven
Metal Lovers Unite
I just wanted to drop you a line about your November 2006 issue.
As I was going through the music review section, imagine my
surprise when I saw album reviews of  two of my favorite metal
bands, Mastodon and Iron Maiden. I am probably what some
would consider to be an “older metalhead” at the ripe age of
36 and have been listening to metal since I was around 10. I am
also a die-hard fan of jazz and classical music and have been a
musician for a number of years. Now that I am a bit older, I
actually have the means to afford some of the higher-end gear
and buy all the music that I love so much.
The reason for my letter to you is simple: It is very rare that
a magazine of  The Absolute Sound’s caliber prints a music review
of anything but a jazz or classical album. What you point out
in your review is something that most metalheads have known
forever—jazz and classical influences are the backbone of
metal music. All too often, metal is looked on by most of the
public, and all of the audiophile community, as just a bunch of
tattooed punks screaming and slamming on their guitars. People
who know metal, know that most metal bands have some serious
chops and do have the ability to play technically, as well as to write
technical compositions (unlike most of what has been forced
down our throats on radio). Mastodon and Iron Maiden are just
two great examples of excellent musicianship in metal (or any
music, for that matter). I applaud you for putting these reviews in
your magazine when other publications simply ignore the genre
altogether. Keep up the great work! 
Jim Pusso
Another Opinion of
the NuForce Class D
Amplifiers
This is addressed to Wayne Garcia: Wayne: I’ve enjoyed your
work for many years and have great confidence in your judgment
and integrity. It don’t doubt for a moment that you’re describing
exactly what you hear from the NuForce amps [Issue 166]. It’s
just that what I hear is so incredibly different. In my system
Letters
(Naim CD3/XPS2, 52/Supercap, Lingoed LP12 with Dynavector
17D3 cartridge, and Tom Evans phonostage) all I hear is magic.
I replaced a very expensive Naim amp with the NuForce amps
and I can tell you, the Naim piece was mortally humiliated. The
NuForce amps are remarkably detailed, stunningly dynamic, yet
rich and musical. There’s none of  the flatness and brittleness you
heard. To me they are simply the best deal I’ve ever encountered
in audio. If my dealer had tried to take them back, I would have
fought him. I wonder if my experience has anything to do with
my speakers: They’re Ambience 1800 ribbon hybrids, made
by Tony Moore of Ambience Audio in Australia. These are
marvelous speakers, but perhaps more important, I believe Tony
is using the NuForce amps to voice them. I guess it’s possible
that these amps are chameleons, so sensitive to equipment that
they can be spectacularly good in one system and appallingly bad
in another. I’m glad my system is one they like. Just thought you
might be interested.
Name withheld by request
Wayne Garcia replies: The more we work with Class D amplifiers, the
more convinced I am that these designs are generally more sensitive
to speaker and cable interfaces than we’re used to from linear
amplifiers—hence, the widely different experiences we reported
in Issue 166’s Class D feature. If the Ambient speaker designer
does use the NuForce to voice his speakers, then I’m sure you have
a marvelous match. And thanks for the note, whoever you are.
Not on SACD
Please inform Mr. Valin and Mr. Lehman that several of the RCA and
Mercury recordings in their “100 More Best-of-the-Century Classical
Compositions” article (Issue 166) are erroneously listed as released
in the SACD format. These recordings include “best” numbers 71,
73, and 77. Those recording have never been released in the SACD
format.
My wish is that those and any other classic Living Stereo and Living
Presence recordings will be released in the SACD format.
James Citti
JV replies: Mea culpa. Though the catalogue numbers are right, the
three titles Mr. Citti mentioned are incorrectly identified as “Hybrid
SACDs.” They are just plain ol’ CDs.
www.avguide.com
Watch for our live
coverage of the 2007
Consumer Electronics
Show beginning January 9
Join the discussion with
TAS editors and readers at
our forum
Tune into Robert Harley’s
new weekly blog
10 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Playing Favorites
I enjoy reading your magazine and have been a subscriber for
the last few years. I have noticed that there are some companies’
products which are regularly reviewed by you and/or your staff,
while others go largely ignored. I know there are hundreds, if not
thousands, of offerings in each product category, but it seems as
if the magazine has relationships with or prefers some companies
over others.
I have used the information in your magazine to help me
research a number of my purchases and have found your reviews
to be very helpful. The first review I read in your magazine was
of the Vandersteen 3A Signature speakers (which I subsequently
purchased). I have noticed that each year in your Editor’s Choice
Awards that the 3A Signatures and the 5A Signatures are given
recognition. It is for that reason that I am surprised that you
haven’t reviewed the newest addition to the Vandersteen line, the
Quattro. I love my 3A Sigs and a logical upgrade for me would
potentially be the Quattro.
Additionally, I have grown to be a fan of the Sunfire product
line. I do business with a dealer who sells Krell, Classé, Rotel,
and Sunfire, among others in his store. I have done business
with this gentleman for over twenty years and have come to truly
respect his opinion about high-end audio equipment, especially
with regard to value for the dollar. Earlier this year I told him
I wanted to purchase an expensive multichannel amplifier. He
strongly dissuaded me from doing so and told me that not only
was the Sunfire a better value, it may last longer because of its
design and, when all is said and done, may sound better! Bottom
line, I purchased the Sunfire Signature 7 and saved thousands of
dollars. “So what?” you are asking yourself. In your open letter
in last month’s magazine you spoke of having dinner with Bob
Carver, and I must say I was shocked! In the last three years I have
not seen a reference to one Sunfire product in your magazine
(except possibly a sub). My point being, you respect and admire
the man, his company manufactures some great value products,
yet Sunfire is largely ignored by your magazine.
I guess I’m just curious as to how products and companies are
selected for review by your publication. Thanks in advance for
your thoughtful response. Keep up the good work!
John Connor
RH replies: We’ve been trying to get a review sample of the
Quattro for some time. I’ve heard the Quattro at shows where
it sounded superb (see our live coverage of the Rocky Mountain
Audio Fest at www.avguide.com, as well as our print coverage
in this issue).
We have favorably reviewed Sunfire products in The Perfect
Vision in past issues, and have a review planned of Sunfire’s
Theater Grand controller and amplifier in the next issue. We
intend to look at other Sunfire products in the future, perhaps
in TAS.
Errata: In the last issue, we listed the incorrect price for Hansen Audio’s
The King V2 loudspeaker. The correct price is $65,000 per pair.
Letters
Cheap Tabloid
Journalism?
Open mouth—insert both feet! Re: “Robert Harley Comments
on the Memory Player” (Issue 167, December 2006, pg. 121).
Having e-mailed you numerous times over the years, I find
this one especially tough, but necessary. [With regard to your
Comment], cheap tabloid journalism comes to mind.
There were any number of  ways to raise questions, or express
your concerns as to the technologies employed in the Memory
Player without resorting to making your sidebar come across
as a diatribe. Makes me think you have a personal issue with
[Memory Player designer] Mark Porzilli. And if that is why you
slammed him as you did, I recommend you take it up with him
in private and not air your dirty laundry in TAS, which should be
above such childish fray!
You could have found a way to air your opinion without being
confrontational, which I have not known you to be over the
years. It seems to me that you unnecessarily painted yourself
into a corner. How are you going to respond if  the Memory
Player blows away anything you’ve ever heard?
Wouldn’t it have been wiser to wait and hear, then say something
like, “You know the claims Mark makes are contrary to what I
have been taught (your teachers could have been wrong!), but
nevertheless, the Memory Player.…”
I suggest you start figuring out how to get all the egg off your
face.
Robert Hart
RH replies: I have never met Mark Porzilli nor had any contact
with him of any kind. I have no “personal issue” with him as you
suggest. Even if I did, I would not use the pages of TAS to pursue
a “personal issue.”
I do, however, object strenuously to a manufacturer making
false technical claims about how a product works. The claim put
forth for why the Memory Player improves the sound is totally
baseless. I believe it is not just within my purview to point this
out, but is, indeed, my responsibility to alert readers when
manufacturers invent far-fetched hypotheses to explain why
their product works.
You fail to note that my Comment stated unequivocally that the
Memory Player might indeed produce a sonic benefit. Specifically,
I wrote: “This isn’t to say that the Memory Player doesn’t improve
the sound. There are many instances in high-end audio where an
audible change exists that cannot be explained by our limited
understanding of the science. Indeed, other mechanisms might be
at work. But ‘a congestion and harsh odd (order) harmonics borne
of a synthetic tone’ is not one of them.”
Finally, I must disagree with your view that I should have
discussed my technical critique of the Memory Player’s claims in
private with Mr. Porzilli. The company is making public technical
explanations for the Memory Player that are, in my view, simply
false. It would have been a disservice to TAS readers (and to
the truth) to withhold my opinion and allow those claims to go
unchallenged.
12 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Blind Listening and
Numerical Ratings
After finding your book [Robert Harley’s The Complete Guide to
High-End Audio] rather insightful I have subscribed to The Absolute
Sound. While the reviews by individual contributors and the
Editors Choice Awards are somewhat useful, it is pretty obvious
that there is a good deal of subjectivity involved. Listening to
audio equipment is by definition a subjective experience, but you
could apply scientific methodology to your evaluations. Here, I
don’t mean electronic measurements in the lab. What I propose is
blinded evaluation and scoring of products by your contributors
in a group setting. Such methodology would significantly improve
the credibility of your publication and serve your readers better.
And it would be a lot of fun for you guys involved.
The other issue I would like to bring up is the disclosure of
potential conflicts of interest. It would be important for your
readers to know if your contributors serve as consultants, have
ownership interest, or other potential conflicts of interest related
to high-end audio companies.
Finally, I would like to know if the reference systems listed
by your contributors were purchased, purchased at a significant
discount or received for free. Obviously, this is a potential conflict
of interest, but more importantly I would like to know if your
contributors have particular components because they really like
them or because they got a deal on it.
Lehel Somogyi
RH replies: I’ve participated in blind-listening tests, and can tell
you that they are extremely difficult to set up and run correctly.
Nonetheless, I found the experience most interesting, despite my
belief that blind listening tests are fundamentally flawed.
Reviewers cannot be consultants to the industry, nor can they
have any financial involvement with high-end companies. In
fact, we are often offered products for evaluation in advance
of production, with the evaluation given to the manufacturer
rather than for publication. We decline all such requests.
As for the source of reviewers’ reference systems, see this
issue’s “From the Editor.”
Upcoming in TAS
• Comprehensive subwoofer feature
• Wilson-Benesch Torus and JL Audio
F113 subwoofers
• Creek integrated amp and CD player
• Rotel RMB-1077 Class D amp
• Updated PSB Alpha speaker and sub
• Lyngdorf Audio DSP room-correction
system
• Amphion Ion and Mirage speakers
• Avid Acutus Reference turntable
• Mobile Fidelity Carbon 3.5 cartridge
 Editor
Do Equipment Loans Corrupt the Review Process?
A
recent post on the reader
forum at our Web site
AVguide.com (main thread:
“High-End Audio Industry;”
sub-thread: “Reviewers, Manufacturers,
and Prices”) suggests that the reviewing
process is somehow corrupt because
reviewers routinely accept long-term
equipment loans. The forum-poster posits
that reviewers provide favorably biased
coverage to those manufacturers willing
to leave the equipment in the reviewer’s
home for an extended period of time.
I can see how this system might at
first glance seem suspect. But a more
considered and thoughtful analysis
suggests that long-term equipment
loans are not only essential to delivering
accurate reviews, but serve the readers’
best interests. Moreover, a little insight
into the reality of the relationship
between reviewers, manufacturers, and
review samples reveals that no favoritism
or bias could possibly exist.
I start with the fundamental quandary
that long-term loans solve: Reviewers
need reference-quality equipment to
accurately judge the component under
review—reference gear that they couldn’t
possibly afford to buy. It would be a
great disservice to everyone involved
(particularly readers) if reviewers tried to
evaluate a piece of equipment in a system
whose colorations obscured the qualities
of the component under test. How could
one evaluate a top-notch digital front end,
for example, if that front end were driving
a low-resolution, less-than-transparent
preamplifier and power amplifier? The
greater the review system’s transparency,
the more precise, detailed, and accurate
the description of the component under
review. Moreover, reviewers need access
to the latest gear to make comparisons
to the product being evaluated. Readers
16 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
FROM THE
would not expect us to compare a new power amplifier to what we considered the
reference five years ago. It’s simply impossible for reviewers to continually buy the
latest reference-quality components—in every product category—so that we can do
our jobs.
Long-term loans also benefit the reader in that they alert the reader to those products
the reviewer believes to be reference quality. If you see a product listed under a reviewer’s
Associated Components month after month, you can be assured that the product is
special. We’re exposed to a wide variety of gear; only the crème de la crème remains in the
reference system. Sharp-eyed readers can identify the truly exceptional products among
all those that pass through our listening rooms.
But what about the forum-poster’s assertion that this system is ripe for corruption?
Do reviewers really give overly favorable assessments to those companies who agree to
lend the equipment for months or even a few years?
Absolutely not, and here’s why. The reality is that reviewers have access to long-term
loans on just about any product they want. I could pick up the phone right now and have
virtually any piece of high-end audio equipment delivered to my home for an indefinite
period. I don’t say that in a boastful way; it’s just the reality of the industry (which I
believe is far too review-driven). In fact, there’s often a conflict with a manufacturer
when a reviewer wants to return the gear; the manufacturer would rather see it stay in the
reference system—and have the product mentioned every month. With reviewers having
long-term access to nearly any piece of equipment, there’s no incentive to provide biased
coverage in a quid pro quo arrangement. Furthermore, why would a reviewer want to
keep in his system any product that he or she didn’t believe was truly reference quality?
Remember that we don’t just use our systems as test beds for reviewing; our hi-fi systems
also provide us with musical enjoyment when we’re not specifically conducting listening
evaluations (which is most of the time).
A key idea to making this system work is that the product is eventually returned to the
manufacturer, either when the manufacturer wants it back, the product is discontinued,
or when the reviewer is ready to move on to another product.
There will always be a few cynics who see this system as fundamentally corrupt, but the
fact remains that long-term equipment loans are not only a win-win-win arrangement for
readers, manufacturers, and reviewers, but essential to publishing accurate and informed
product reviews.
___________________________________________________________________
Be sure to join us on the Web at AVguide.com for live coverage of the 2007 Consumer Electronics
Show, complete with video segments on the most important product introductions, starting January
9. While you’re on AVguide.com, tune into my new weekly blog on high-end audio, which debuted
December 1.
Robert Harley
Editor-in-Chief
 Industry
NEWS
Thiel Audio
Celebrates 30th
Anniversary
The year 2007 marks the 30th
anniversary of Lexington,
Kentucky-based Thiel Audio, a
well-respected manufacturer of
Chris Martens high-end loudspeaker systems.
Founded in 1976, Thiel Audio
now offers a product line of 15

Terry Cain Many TAS readers know of the beautifully made high-
sensitivity speaker systems produced by the Walla Walla,
models that are sold in over 30
countries worldwide.
Health Fund Washington-based firm of Cain & Cain. What they may
not realize is that Terry Cain, founder of Cain & Cain, was
From the beginning, Thiel has
been lead by chief designer Jim
Drive: Taking diagnosed a little over year ago with what has been described
as a “debilitating combination of Lyme disease and progres-
Thiel, who has worked tirelessly

Care of sive amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or Lou Gehrig’s disease.” At this

to create ever more sophisticated
and refined designs for time- and
Our Own point Cain has sold his business to an associate, moved from
his home to a special care facility, and is, with support from
phase-coherent loudspeakers.
Along the way, Thiel’s research
his wife Leslie, actively fighting for his life. However, health care costs are such that Cain has touched on a number of
badly needs help from the high-end world to which he has been, until now, such a vibrant areas involving loudspeaker
contributor. As a means of rendering assistance to Cain, the Terry Cain Health Fund has enclosure construction and
been established, and there are essentially two ways in which readers can help. design, including the innovative
First, make a direct donation to the Terry Cain Health Fund. Readers can submit con- use of materials such as
tributions via any of the methods shown below. aluminum, concrete, and marble.
•P  ersonal checks: Make payable to Terry Cain Medical Fund and mail to: Thiel’s research on subwoofer
Bank of America, Attention Freddie Young design has yielded three patents.
10459 N. 28th Drive At the same time, a significant
Phoenix, AZ 85051, USA part of Thiel Audio’s long-
(602) 674-4901 standing business success
• Direct deposit: Terry Cain Medical Fund, Bank of America, is attributable to company
Account # 4570 0033 9418 president Kathy Gornik, who
• Wire Transfer: Terry Cain Medical Fund, Bank of America, Wire Routing #0 2600 is responsible for the firm’s
9593, Account # 4570 0033 9418 vision, policies, and marketing
Note: All monies deposited into the Terry Cain Medical Fund accounts, above, will be strategy. Gornik has also served
exclusively used to support Terry and his wife Leslie in their fight for Terry’s life. as Chairman of the Consumer
Second, participate in a new/used audio equipment sales program conducted Electronics Association (CEA),
for Cain’s benefit under the auspices of the 6moons Web site (www.6moons.com). and as past Chairperson of CEA’s
Under this program, sellers may offer new or used equipment for sale, pledging a Audio Division. Gornik was the
clearly marked percentage of the price of their equipment to the Terry Cain Health founder and first Chairperson of
Fund. Buyers, in turn, may purchase equipment, secure in the knowledge that a CEA’s High Performance Audio
clear-cut percentage of the purchase prices paid will go directly to Terry’s account. subdivision, which she helped to
For further information on how you can help, follow this link: www.6moons.com/ create.
showcase/terrycain/terrycain.html.

A Factory-Approved History of McIntosh Laboratories

McIntosh Laboratories, based in Binghamton, New York, has announced the
impending release of a factory-approved company history, titled For the Love of
Music. To research and create the text, McIntosh tapped British audio writer Ken
Kessler as its chosen historian. McIntosh sources told The Absolute Sound that
the decision to work with Kessler on this project was influenced by widespread
appreciation for the work Kessler did in crafting his masterful 2003 book Quad:
The Closest Approach—a history of the British hi-fi firm Quad and of the legendary
Quad electrostatic loudspeaker.
McIntosh assisted Kessler wherever possible in his research, and as a result
For the Love of Music brings to light fascinating historical details that even die-
continued on next page
18 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

continued from previous page
hard McIntosh aficionados might
find eye-opening. For example, a
chapter specifically dedicated to
rare, and in some cases one-of-a-
kind, McIntosh products reveals
that the Eishenhower-era Air Force
One—then a propeller-driven
Lockheed Constellation—featured
a McIntosh MR55A tuner and
MC40 power amplifiers, each unit
modified to have its traditional
RCA jacks replaced with mil-spec
connectors.
Kessler also reveals that McIntosh
at one time supplied special
kilowatt vacuum tube amplifiers to
the U.S. Navy for use in submarines.
Interestingly, those monster amps
used just two output tubes apiece
(dual EIMAC 4-400As), measured
only 8" deep, and required forced-
air cooling.
Later, Kessler devotes a chapter
to McIntosh’s sometimes reluctant
role in the evolution of the
giant sound-reinforcement systems
used by rock bands worldwide.
McIntosh amplifiers, for example,
provided all the power needed for
sound reinforcement at what was
arguably the most famous (and
influential) rock music festival of all
time: Woodstock. By interviewing
the designers of the Woodstock
system, Kessler takes us back to a
time when high fidelity was still
young, and high-performance
sound-reinforcement systems
were in their infancy. Kessler
also details one of the finest,
audiophile-grade rock band sound
systems ever assembled; namely,
the Grateful Dead’s famous “Wall
of Sound” line-array system, which
was driven by a whopping 28,800-
watts worth of McIntosh MC2300
power amplifiers!
For the Love of Music is a lavishly
illustrated, 314-page book that will
soon become available through
McIntosh dealers. Suggested retail
price should be around $150.
Industry News
The Philadelphia
Orchestra Downloads
This past September, the Philadelphia
Orchestra became the first major
American symphonic institution to sell
its recordings as downloads. This comes
at a time when, for economic reasons,
releases of orchestral music by labels
big and small are ever more infrequent.
The Philadelphia Orchestra itself was
without a label affiliation until Ondine
began issuing some live performances
on SACD in late 2005. In addition,
the distribution of classical recordings
is increasingly problematic with the
disappearance of “deep inventory”
retailers such as Tower Records. Now,
we may see symphony orchestras taking
both the record company and the record
store out of the equation.
The Philadelphia Orchestra Online
Music Store’s initial offering features 27
selections. Roughly half are from recent
concerts, including performances of all
nine Beethoven symphonies conducted
by Christoph Eschenbach, the PO’s
current music director. Also available
are readings of Schubert’s Symphony
No. 9, a Shostakovich Fifth led by
Wolfgang Sawallisch, as well as several
other performances from Philadelphia
associate conductor Rossen Milanov.
The remaining 13 selections are
taken from the Orchestra’s celebrated
Centennial Collection and present
archival material led by Leopold
Stokowski, Eugene Ormandy, Riccardo
Muti, and Sawallisch. The repertoire
ranges from Brahms (Variations on a
Theme of Joseph Haydn) to Respighi
(The Pines of Rome) to Penderecki
(Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima).
Audiophiles are typically skeptical
of music downloads, expecting
compressed music files and inferior
sonics under critical—i.e., non-
iPod—listening conditions. The
Philadelphia project addresses this
concern head-on, providing two
options for the consumer. For $0.99
to $9.99, depending on the length
of the program (a typical symphony
costs $4.99), a user can download a
256 kbps MP3 file. This is twice the
data-rate of an iTunes file and, while
no one will confuse the format with the
absolute sound, these MP3s are quite
listenable, even on a high-end system.
Significantly better, however, are the
FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec)
versions, available for a dollar more. In
comparison to the MP3s, these sound
like a good compact disc burned from
your computer to CD-R.
To produce these downloads, the
Philadelphians have turned to nugs.net
enterprises, a company that has provided
“band-to-fan” distribution for rock
artists like Phish, Metallica, and the
Dave Matthews Band. The Philadelphia
Orchestra is its first classical client. Brad
Serling, founder and CEO of
nugs.net (and a long-time reader of
TAS), grew up in Philadelphia and
observes, “The Orchestra has a long
history of being on the cutting edge
and was the perfect orchestra to launch
its own direct-to-fan download service.”
Of note, Serling has plans to offer
24-bit FLAC files in the future. “We
believe there will be more demand in
the classical market for high-resolution
recordings than in the live rock market.
Many of our clients do in fact send us
24-bit masters of their live recordings,
which we then dither to 16 bits for
download release. All of the festivals
we work with, from Bonnaroo to
Lollapalooza to Austin City Limits, for
example, capture everything in 24 bits,
so we are sitting on a high-resolution
archive we can tap into in the future as
24-bit playback becomes more user-
friendly.”
DVD-Audio/SACD-quality
recordings for sale over the Internet?
Sounds like it’s coming.
The current Philadelphia
Orchestra downloads are available
through the PO’s Web site: www.
thephiladelphiaorchestra.com.
Andrew Quint
The Absolute Sound February 2007 21
Future
TAS
Chris Martens

Next-generation Monitor Audio Bronze Series loudspeakers

The British firm Monitor Audio, which by tradition has named its
top three lines of speakers after precious metals, has announced its
next-generation Bronze Series loudspeakers—the most affordable of
Monitor’s high-end speaker families.
The new Bronze models have a host of updates, including new C-
CAM (ceramic-coated aluminum/magnesium) tweeters and MMP-Mk2
(metal-matrix polymer) midrange and bass drivers, revised crossover networks, and improved cabinets offered in black oak, walnut, or
cherry “pearlescent vinyl finishes.” Based on firsthand observation, we can say these new vinyl finishes can be, and probably often will be,
mistaken for real wood veneers. There are seven Bronze models in all, ranging from the BR1 two-way monitors ($299/pair) up to the 2 ½-
way BR6 floorstanders ($799/pair). monitoraudiousa.com

AcousTech Ultra and Limited automatic record cleaning machines

Many TAS readers have at least passing familiarity with the beautiful and
robust automated record-cleaning machines from the German firm Hannl. The
only catch is that Hannls are quite expensive ($3299 for the Aragon model
and $2499 for the Mera cleaner). Now, however, the folks at AcousTech
have made the cost of owning a Hannl a bit more affordable by offering
two new Hannl-built machines—the Ultra ($2199) and the Limited ($1899).
Both compact (15" x 15" footprint) cleaning machines are unusually powerful
and quiet, and feature automatic cleaning-fluid dispensers. The Ultra provides
variable electronic platter speed and suction controls, plus a special chrome-
plated disc-label-protection puck. Ultras are offered in a broad range of stylish
colors including black, white, frosted red, blue, clear ice blue, and clear (as
shown).
The Limited model is similar to the Ultra, but provides two user-selectable suction
levels (70% or 100%), and a fixed platter-rotation speed. The Limited comes in any color
you’d like, as long as it’s black. store.acousticsounds.com

NAD Masters Series

M5 SACD/CD player
Hot on the heels of its A/V-oriented
Masters Series M55 universal player,
NAD has announced a new audio-
only SACD/CD player called the M5
($1799). The M5 features completely
separate CD (PCM) and SACD (DSD)
circuits, and, in the interest of
achieving greater flexibility, includes
HDCD, MP3, and WMA decoders.
Though construed primarily as a two-
channel player, the M5 can play multichannel SACD discs either in stereo or in 5.1-channel format. To facilitate use in multichannel systems, the
M5 provides pre-sets for various popular 5.1-channel speaker system configurations, plus an extensive set of bass-management options. Unlike
most audio-oriented players, the M5 provides video outputs so that set-up menu and MP3 playback options can be viewed on screen; purists,
however, have the option of switching off the video outputs for “the cleanest audio possible.” Good though NAD’s M55 universal player sounds,
NAD sources told TAS the new M5 sounds “substantially better.” nadelectronics.com

22 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

 Future
TAS
B&W CM7 floorstanding loudspeakers
British speaker manufacturer B&W says its CM Series
loudspeakers offer “best-of-both-worlds” appeal, an allusion
to the fact that the CM’s combine the gorgeous, understated
appearance of “old school” wood-finished cabinets (available
in wenge—as shown—rosenut, or maple), but are equipped
with drive units based on 21st-century Nautilus-derived
technologies. The flagships of the CM range are the new CM7
floorstanders ($1800/pair), which feature a 25mm Nautilus TM
tube-loaded dome tweeter, a 130mm Kevlar midrange driver,
and a 165mm paper/Kevlar bass driver. The speakers feature
what B&W terms “ear-tuned first and second order crossover
networks.” bwspeakers.com

Marantz SA-7S1 reference SACD player

Marantz has announced what can only be considered
a new “Statement Class” SACD player, the soon-to-be-
released SA-7S1 ($6999). Many design features of the
SA-7S1 aim to minimize noise and vibration. To this end,
the player features a copper-clad chassis with a double-
layer floorplate, a toroidal power transformer with a
copper shielding case, and a special “Digital Isolator” said
to improve D/A converter ground separation. Marantz
stresses that the player features “completely separate
digital and analog stages.”
The SA-7S1 also incorporated a newly designed
aluminum transport mechanism, Marantz’s phase-error-
compensation system, high-accuracy NPC SM5866A5 DACs,
and a low-jitter clock. Interestingly, Marantz includes
two other features not commonly seen in most high-end
players: a feature that allows the player to sync to an
external clock, and a phase-inversion switch. marantz.com

Sutherland Ph3D battery-powered phonostage

Many audiophiles are familiar with Sutherland’s $3000, battery-powered PhD phonostage, but what they may
not have anticipated is the firm’s new Ph3D, a $1000 battery-powered phonostage that promises to make many
essential aspects of the Sutherland sound available at an unprecedented low price. The Ph3D leverages design
insights drawn both from the more costly PhD and the Sutherland-designed AcousTech PH-1P—both of which
are well-regarded performers at their respective price points.
The Ph3d is powered by 16 D-cell batteries, said to be good for about 800–1200 hours of use, and provides
user-adjustable gain and loading settings. One simple way in which the Ph3D cuts costs without cutting
performance is by foregoing the PhD’s automatic signal-sensing/automatic-shutoff circuitry. Instead, the Ph3D
features a somewhat prosaic but perfectly effective on/off toggle switch. A faceplate-mounted LED serves both
as a power-on indicator and voltage monitor. store.acousticsounds.com

The Absolute Sound February 2007 25

 Start Me Up
NAD C 325BEE Integrated Amplifier
and C 525BEE CD Player
Barry Willis
New benchmarks for
affordable audio
26 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Two years ago, part of my pitch to TAS Editor-in-Chief Robert Harley and
Senior Writer Chris Martens about joining the Absolute Multimedia team was my enthusiasm
for affordable high-performance components. “The difference between ultra-high-end gear and
mass-market stuff is smaller than ever before—and shrinking,” I asserted, to wry smiles. “And
somebody ought to be covering affordable excellence.”
I’ve just come away from a marathon listening session involving a $299 CD player and $399
integrated amp, and I’m more convinced than ever that great sound, real soul-satisfying musical
sound, can be had on a painfully tight budget. The gear that provoked this revelation is the NAD C
325BEE integrated amplifier and C 525BEE CD player, new entry-level two-channel components
that, right out of the box, had a compelling synergy with a pair of DALI IKON 6 loudspeakers.
Launched at the CEDIA Expo in September, the NAD pieces were heralded as the latest evidence
of the manufacturer’s commitment to two-channel playback. Also implied in that announcement
was NAD’s commitment to the huge market of budget-minded music lovers. Incorporating many
technical advancements—the “BEE” suffix stands for engineer Bjorn Erik Edvardsen, who was
intimately involved in the design of both products—the two components are claimed by NAD to
establish new benchmarks for affordable audio.
After extended and enthusiastic listening, I believe this claim is not mere marketing hype. Using
Nordost SPM interconnects and speaker cable—I’ve previously justified this “not-in-the-real-
world” hookup by explaining that SPM is so transparent that it reveals all of the components’
contributions to the soundscape—the NAD/DALI system delivered stunning detail and layered
harmonic textures that were completely unexpected from equipment in this price niche.
The Best of Boubacar Traore [Wrasse] was the first CD I popped in the player, and what an eye-
opener it proved to be. The world-weary voice of the Malian bluesman and his backing chorus
overlaid with alto-relievo plucked strings and drums emerged in the room like an orchestrated swarm
of butterflies.
Perhaps subconsciously expecting a flat lifeless soundstage and a bit of cheap hi-fi shrillness,
I was completely unprepared for both the degree of detail and sheer musicality that the NADs
delivered. Chrissie Hynde’s heartbreaking live cover of Ray Davies’ “I Go to Sleep” from The
Start Me Up
Pretenders’ The Isle of View [Warner Bros.]
had a dimensionality that we normally
associate with much more expensive
electronics, and seemed as immediate as it
must have been for the audience that sat
in rapt silence through her performance.
Pacing and bass impact were great too. On
Shadowland [Sire], K.D. Lang’s thumping
country tearjerker “I’m Down to My Last
Cigarette” picked me up and carried me
along like a high-rolling big rig on an
open stretch of interstate. Putting the
Gershwin classic “Summertime” through
the up-tempo jazz blender is, I suppose,
an experiment worth trying, and club
diva Kitty Margolis makes an admirable
attempt in Heart & Soul/Live in San
Francisco [Mad-Kat]. Her three-piece band
works up a lather in this extended improv,
every drum whack and every plucked bass
string fully articulated by the NADs and
DALIs.
Although rated at only 50Wpc, the
C 325BEE is claimed to have dynamic
power of 210Wpc into 2 ohms, meaning
it can deliver enormous bursts of current
into very low-impedance loads without
bogging down. This ability is enhanced by
the “PowerDrive” technology found in all
Specs &
Pricing
NAD Electronics International
633 Granite Court
Pickering, Ontario
L1W 3K1, Canada
(905) 831-6555
nadelectronics.com
C 325BEE Integrated Amplifier
Power output: 50Wpc into 8 ohms
Inputs: Seven line-level inputs on RCA jacks;
pre-out/main-in connectors; IR input and
output; 12V trigger
Dimensions: 17.25" x 4" x 11.5"
Weight: 17.6 lbs.
Price: $399
C 525BEE CD Player
Outputs: Analog stereo pair on RCA, digital
coax, and digital optical (TosLink)
Dimensions: 17.25" x 3.5" x 11.5"
Weight: 10.4 lbs.
Price: $299
Associated Equipment
DALI IKON 6 loudspeakers; Nordost SPM
interconnects and speaker cables; Tributaries
TX500 power conditioner
28 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
NAD C 325BEE Integrated Amplifier and C 525BEE CD Player
NAD amplifiers, which NAD says, “adds
huge reserves of dynamic headroom
without adding cost by ingeniously
matching the amplifier to the speaker load
. . . adjusting the power supply parameters
of the amplifier to best cope with the
actual musical signal and specific speaker
loading characteristics.”
The amp’s good sound can also
be attributed to “trickle-down”
improvements derived from NAD
Masters Series products, including a “new
DC Servo that eliminates sound coloring
capacitors in the signal path,” and a
“patented distortion-canceling circuit that
uses both feedback and feedforward to
reduce distortion and improve amplifier
stability. The optimized circuit layout
lowers internal impedance, improves
grounding, and eliminates subtle magnetic
distortions.”
In use, the C 325BEE was very quiet—
residual noise was barely audible with an
open input and the volume control turned
fully clockwise. But with high-sensitivity
loudspeakers like the IKON 6s, there
was never any need to push the volume
control beyond the 10 o’clock position.
The amp was also tremendously dynamic,
with open, effortless sonics.
The chassis design is a classic NAD
black box and looks almost identical to
products the company built 30 years ago.
A nice feature is the removable jumpers
between the preamp and power amp
sections, providing expansion options
not otherwise possible. In addition to
using the C 325BEE as a preamp feeding
a separate power amp, you could also use
the pre-out signal to drive a subwoofer,
by replacing the pre-out/main-in jumpers
with Y-adaptors.
The amp comes with an easy-to-use
remote control that also includes all the
transport functions for the CD player.
Its volume control operates smoothly
and in small increments, allowing
precise adjustments to listening level
without abrupt changes. The remote
offers no backlight at this price point,
unfortunately.
The C 525BEE disc player is good
sounding but a tad rough ergonomically.
This isn’t a serious criticism, but an
observation that the right decisions were
made about where to cut costs to bring
the machine to market at under $300.
The drawer is undamped and makes
some noise as it slides in and out, and
the blue-and-white backlit display doesn’t
have enough contrast to be read across
the room in high ambient light.
But where it counts the player is very
well executed, with improved optical
tracking circuitry and a 20-bit Burr-
Brown DAC chosen for low-level linearity
and resolution of detail. Borrowing
from much more upscale designs, the C
525BEE has separate power regulators
for the digital and analog sections, for
lower contamination of the analog
output by digital noise. The player
also features metal-film resistors and
polypropylene capacitors in key areas for
accurate frequency response, in addition
to high-quality Burr-Brown op-amps in
the output section.
Recognizing the likelihood that the C
525BEE might be used as a transport
feeding an external DAC, NAD engineers
buffered the coaxial output with a
transformer from the converter itself.
The digital output’s 75-ohm impedance
is, as NAD claims, ideally matched to
digital cables, reducing the potential for
jitter or timing errors. Like the remote for
the amplifier, the CD player’s remote is
simple and easy to use, and also without
a backlight. Unlike its sibling, it doesn’t
operate the amp.
The owner’s manual says the C 525BEE
plays standard CDs plus CD-Rs, and
warns about potential playback glitches
using off-brand recordable blanks. The
player handled every factory-issued CD
perfectly, but got a bit balky with one of
my Memorex compilation discs—one
that’s played in every other disc player
without a problem, including a now very
long-in-the-tooth Marantz CC-65SE
changer.
NAD’s C 325BEE/C 525BEE combo
is one of the best bargains in audio today.
The pair offers superb detail, tremendous
dynamics, excellent soundstaging, and a
simply amazing amount of musicality at
a ridiculously low price. I found them not
only easy to listen to for many hours at
a stretch, but also downright compelling.
You may, too. TAS
 Start Me Up

NuForce P8 Preamplifier
Chris Martens

For obvious reasons, many audiophiles-in-the-making begin their quests

for great sound with modestly priced integrated amplifiers or receivers. However, as they gain
experience and develop a passion for more revealing sound, there often comes a time to take
A splendid the plunge into the world of separate components. When that happy moment arrives, listeners
introduction to the naturally seek out the best entry-level (or near-entry-level) preamplifiers they can find. Over the
world of high-end years, I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to live with some excellent affordable preamps, but
separates two in particular stand out in my mind. The first is the award-winning Rogue Audio Metis, a tube-
powered unit that I reviewed in Issue 160. The second is the solid-state NuForce P8, which is
the subject of this review. Both the Metis and P8 are sonic overachievers that offer different but
complementary interpretations of the absolute sound. I’ll first recount the sound of the Rogue
Audio Metis as a means of setting the stage for discussion of the NuForce P8.
The Metis, like many good vacuum-tube-powered preamps, offers almost magical harmonic
richness and rightness in the midrange. However, unlike tube designs that sound rolled-off or
softly focused at the frequency extremes, the Metis exhibits evenly balanced frequency response
and nearly the level of control you might expect from a good solid-state preamp. But if the Metis
is a tube preamp with some solid state-like qualities, then the NuForce P8 is its complementary
opposite—a solid-state preamp that offers certain tube-like virtues.
The P8’s sonic signature centers around traditional solid-state clarity, definition, tonal balance,
and control, but with a twist. Unlike solid-state designs marred by a cold, sterile, or hyper-analytical
sound, the P8 instead exhibits an extremely subtle and engaging touch of warmth, which affects
the preamp’s presentation from top to bottom, but is most noticeable through the bass and lower
midrange. As the P8 breaks in, this quality of warmth evolves, imparting some of the refined
harmonic complexity associated with tube preamplifiers. At the same time, the P8 maintains the
sort of sharp focus and taut control that are the hallmarks of good solid-state designs. I should
also mention that the P8 proved as quiet as the proverbial tomb (though nowhere near as, er, dead-
sounding), offering a noticeably lower noise floor than the Metis.
Not only does the P8 sound good; it is also a joy to use. If, like me, you find that setting exactly the
right volume level is one of the keys to achieving great sound, then you’ll love the P8. The preamp

The Absolute Sound February 2007 31

Start Me Up
Specs &
Pricing
NUFORCE (NPHYSICS)
356 South Abbott Avenue
Milpitas, California 95035
(408) 426-4165
nuforce.com
Type: Solid-state stereo preamplifier
Inputs: Four stereo analog audio inputs
(three RCA, one mini-jack)
Outputs: Two stereo analog outputs (one
balanced XLR, one single-ended RCA),
headphone output (mini-jack)
Dimensions: 8.5" x 1.75" x 16.5"
Weight: 6 lbs.
Price: $1195
ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Wilson-Benesch Full Circle analog system;
Linn Sondek LP-12 turntable and Ittok LVII
tonearm; Benz Micro ACE L phono cartridge;
Musical Surroundings Phonomena and
Sutherland Ph3D phonostages; Musical
Fidelity Tri Vista SACD and kW SACD
players; NuForce Reference 9 Special Edition
and Kharma MP150 monoblock power
amplifiers; Audio Research D330.2 stereo
power amplifier; Epos ELS 303, NHT Classic
Three, Paradigm Reference Signature S8,
and Mirage OMD-28 loudspeakers; Furutech
Alpha Reference interconnect and speaker
cables; RPG and Auralex room acoustic
treatments
32 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
supports precise volume adjustments
via—picture this—a digitally-controlled,
analog resistor-based volume control
that offers settings ranging from -70dB
to +30dB in .5dB increments! There are
so many settings possible that the P8’s
remote control offers “jump ahead”
controls that let you fast-forward to 25%,
50%, or 75% of maximum volume.
In practice, the P8 is most in its element
when playing material that incorporates
rich layers of inner details just begging
to be revealed, and when fed recordings
that offer precise, accurate imaging and
soundstaging cues. For example, I put on
Christine Collister’s Love… [Rega, LP] to
sample the artist’s thoughtful cover of
the classic Joni Mitchell song “Amelia,”
and there discovered a small treasure
trove of musical riches. The song opens
with Collister singing alone at center
stage, her solo voice joined only by a faint
wash of wind noises appropriate to the
song’s aerial theme. What first struck me
was the textural depth and focused sound
of Collister’s voice, which offered an eye-
opening contrast to the higher but thinner
and more diffuse sound of Mitchell’s
voice from the original recording. Where
Mitchell’s voice soared up and away
like the spirit of the departed Amelia
Earhart, Collister’s voice has a beguiling,
earthbound richness that the P8 captured
beautifully, adding an intriguing new
dimension to the song. Even the wind
effects worked well, probably because the
NuForce P8 Preamplifier
transparent P8 let me hear how artfully
the producer had added them to the mix.
As the song unfolded,
things became even more
interesting as backing
vocalists join Collister on
stage, with a few voices
entering initially
and then a full
chorus arrayed in a
broad semi-circle
behind her. What
I didn’t anticipate
was the P8’s ability to
reproduce the voices of
the backing vocalists with
essentially the same precise focus
and spatial localization I had observed on
Collister’s voice. With the chorus present,
the width and depth of the soundstage
became apparent, so the entire back wall
of my listening room was filled with
voices supporting Collister on stage. At
its best, this little preamp thoroughly
explores discs, effortlessly delineating
complicated, interwoven timbral, textural,
and spatial details.
Good though the P8 is, comparisons
with tube preamplifiers such as the Metis
reveal areas where it might be improved.
First, the P8’s highs tend to sound
slightly dry and two-dimensional relative
to the sweeter, more three-dimensional
treble response good tube units achieve.
Second, the P8 never fully captures the
vivid, vibrant tonal colors that tubes, at
their best, can reproduce. In fact, those
tonal colors may even be a form of
coloration, but if so it’s a coloration that
brings listening sessions alive
Which preamp sounds more musical?
The answer depends on your priorities.
The Metis is arguably more magical and
involving in the midrange and treble
region, and it provides an onboard mm
phonostage. On the other hand, the
P8 is quieter, more flexible, and more
revealing of subtle inner details, and
it offers greater definition, broader
frequency response, and unequivocally
superior bass. Both preamps compete
effectively with models twice their
price, and either would make a splendid
introduction to the world of high-end
separates. Either way, know that the Metis
and P8 both serve music well. TAS
 iTas
Polk Audio I-Sonic Desktop
Audio System
Robert Harley

Polk Audio’s new I-Sonic brings a wide range of music sources to a

desktop or bedroom audio System—and does so with surprising sound quality. The
curvaceous, nine-pound I-Sonic might look like a “table radio,” but appearances are only skin
deep. The $599 I-Sonic is much more than a good-looker, both in terms of format capabilities and
The Swiss Army knife fidelity. In addition to including an AM/FM tuner, it is XM-ready (antenna and XM subscription
of desktop audio required) as well as HD Radio-ready. (HD Radio is a free radio service delivered digitally by your
favorite local terrestrial-based stations. HD Radio’s multicasting feature allows local radio stations
to broadcast many “hidden” channels of different music. Find HD Radio stations in your area at
www.ibiquity.com/hd_radio/hdradio_find_a_station/SA.)
The I-Sonic’s integral disc drive lets you play music CDs and even DVDs, meaning that it can
function as the video source (via S-video and composite-video outputs) for a small home-theater
system, offering greatly improved sound quality compared with your TV speakers. The I-Sonic is
also compatible with Picture CD so you can display photos on your TV monitor.
In addition to the I-Sonic’s ability to deliver music and video from a wide range of formats
(AM/FM/XM/HD Radio/CD/DVD), it can be connected to an external source such as an iPod
or other music player through its stereo line-level input jacks. A nice feature allows you to store
up to 30 radio presets in any combination of AM, FM, XM, or HD Radio. A dual alarm clock
completes the package.
I particularly like the I-Sonic’s informative and useful front-panel display, top-mounted “soft”
buttons that change function depending on which source is selected, and curvaceous, compact
enclosure. In fact, the I-Sonic’s user interface and overall design are exceptionally well thought out.
None of this versatility would matter if the I-Sonic didn’t satisfy musically. It would not be an
overstatement to say that I was shocked by how good it sounded, particularly when playing CDs.
The most impressive aspect of its sound was its extremely smooth and flat tonal balance. Polk
apparently didn’t play tricks with frequency response to appeal to a mass audience, such as boosting
the upper bass to conceal the lack of low bass, peaking the midrange for greater “presence,”
or brightening the treble to add “clarity.” Instead, the I-Sonic sounded like a high-quality mini-
monitor in its overall balance. This smoothness translated into a natural presentation that I could
listen to for hours at a time (in my office while working) without fatigue. In fact, I replaced my
The Absolute Sound February 2007 35
 iTas
165.0
160.0
155.0
150.0
145.0
140.0
135.0
130.0
125.0
120.0
115.0
auto
30.0 100.0
log Frequency - Hz
office separates system (which included a
pair of $600 mini-monitors) with the I-
Sonic.
After I’d had the I-Sonic for a few
weeks, Polk’s Paul DiComo sent me its
frequency-response plot. (He was in the
R&D area and noticed a response plot on
a computer screen, and seeing how flat it
was, assumed it belonged to one of Polk’s
upper-end products. The engineer told
the surprised DiComo that the response
was that of the I-Sonic.) The plot is flatter
than that of many freestanding speaker
systems—and sounds that way.
The I-Sonic has other qualities going
for it beyond a smooth and natural tonal
balance. Bottom-end extension, weight,
and definition are mind-blowing for
such a compact system. Even with the
lowermost octaves missing, the I-Sonic
provides enough information in the bass
to be musically satisfying. For instance, on
the terrific new piano-trio CD Jan Lundgren
in New York (a Japanese disc imported by
East Wind Imports), Peter Washington’s
marvelous, swinging bass playing was
clearly evident and musically coherent.
The treble was also surprisingly clean
and free from tizz, simultaneously
sounding airy and extended. I would
even go so far as to describe the treble as
having a sense of delicacy and refinement.
In addition, the I-Sonic’s four speakers
(two forward-firing and two rear-firing)
deliver remarkably similar tonal balance
and spaciousness from anywhere in the
room. It says much about the I-Sonic that
I’ve described its sound quality in much
36 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
1000.0 1000.0
the same way I would a high-end product.
The I-Sonic is that good.
The I-Sonic’s combination of attributes
is compelling: compact size for a desktop;
access to music from a wide range of
sources; great sound quality; and reasonable
price. I’ve enjoyed a lot of music through
it—and discovered some great new music
(on XM’s Channel 72, for example). The
I-Sonic obviously won’t be the main audio
system for any of us, but in the office or
bedroom, it far exceeds expectations.
The I-Sonic is one of those products I
never wished for, but after just a few days
with this tabletop marvel, I wondered
how I’d ever lived without it. TAS
Specs &
Pricing
Polk Audio
5601 Metro Drive
Baltimore, Maryland 21215
(800) 377-7655
www.polkaudio.com
http://isonic.polkaudio.com
Inputs: XM mini-USB tuner, FM antenna,
AM antenna, line-in (RCA), line-in (stereo
mini-jack)
Outputs: Audio line-out (RCA), headphones
(mini-jack), composite video, S-video
Format compatibility: AM, FM, XM, HD
Radio, CD, DVD-Video, Photo CD, MP3
(on CD)
Dimensions: 14.5" x 4.75" x 9.75"
Weight: 9 lbs.
Price: $599
 Analog Absolute

London Reference Phono Cartridge

Jonathan Valin

The london (formerly “Decca” or “Decca London”) cartridge

has the longest and most distinguished pedigree of any piece of phonographic gear currently on
the market. It has been around in one form or another since before the stereo era—the result of
some extraordinarily ingenious and enduring engineering by the Special Products group of the
Decca Record Company. (The current London Reference cartridge has no connection to Decca
Radio & TV Ltd., which sold the rights to the cartridge’s design and manufacture to former Decca
engineer John Wright and Presence Audio in 1989.)
What sets, and has always set, Decca cartridges apart is the way they generate sound. All phono
cartridges convert the physical motion of a stylus into an electrical signal. Most use a cantilever—a
long thin metal tube equipped with a flexible rubber ring that acts as a fulcrum—to transmit the
vibrations from the stylus at one end to the moving magnets or coils at the other. It was Decca’s
contention that the resonances of the cantilever, the damping effect of the rubber fulcrum, and
the sheer mass of the magnetic engine at the far end of this virtual “see-saw” caused losses
of clarity and dynamic range—what Decca called “cantilever haze.” To sidestep these problems
Decca came up with a cartridge without a cantilever.
Here’s how it works. A diamond stylus is mounted at the tip of a small flexible piece of slightly
angled iron, which, in turn, is glued at its rear to a rubber block (to keep it centered) and further
held in place by a tie-back cord (to prevent the angled-iron armature from moving forward).

A new reference
from London

London Stylus and Armature

38 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

Absolute Analog
The armature is then situated directly
within the magnetic field, with the
magnet and coils that generate the
signal from vertical modulations of the
stylus immediately above it and those
that generate the signal for horizontal
modulations of the stylus immediately to
its sides. The iron armature is magnetized
by these stationary magnets, and its
movement causes lines of magnetic
flux to cut through the coils, inducing a
voltage (a variation on the moving-iron
or induced-magnet design). Decca called
this system “positive scanning.” (See
illustration below.)
Magnet
Pole Piece Pole Piece
Plastic Vertical Coils
Support
Beam
Lateral Coil Armature
Magnet Magnet
Tip
Pole Pieces
As you can see, the only moving part
in a Decca cartridge is the tiny angled-
iron armature that holds the stylus. The
mass of magnets or coils do not have
to be leveraged at the other end of a
cantilever; there is no haze-inducing
rubber damping ring at the cantilever’s
pivot point; and the motion of the
stylus is translated directly to the coils
and magnets that literally surround it,
insuring superior rise times.
Many audio manufacturers make
claims for the technological superiority
of their designs. The fact that Decca
“positive scanning” cartridges have been
around for better than fifty years should
tell you that, in this case, the claims are
mostly justified. Deccas are clearer and
faster than much of their competition.
Lest this turn into a love fest, let
me note the not-so-good news about
“positive-scanning” pickups, before
I turn to the first new “Decca” in 12
years—the London Reference. First,
largely because it doesn’t use a rubbery
damping ring on a cantilever, the Decca
cartridge is relatively “undamped.” This
adds to its aliveness but can, in some
instances, also add treble-range brightness
and aggressiveness. As Deccas were (and
continue to be) hand-made in relatively
40 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
small quantities, slight variations in their
construction can also cause variations
in flat frequency response. (Finding a
“good” Decca used to be an audiophile
pastime back in the seventies, although
recent-vintage Londons have been far
more uniform in sound quality.)
Second, Deccas have always been
very picky about tonearms. Decca’s own
damped unipivot arm was once considered
best. Outside of the used market, however,
Decca arms are no longer available (and I
would not recommend that you try to find
one used, although a new model Decca
tonearm will be available in the near
future). Even in Decca arms, “positive-
scanning” cartridges were indifferent
trackers. Though that has changed to an
extent with the London Reference (which
is equipped with a superior ultra-low-mass
fine-line stylus), what has not changed is
a positive-scanning cartridge’s sensitivity
to dirt and groove wear. Where a moving
coil will plough through dirty or severely
scratched grooves (thanks, in part, to its
greater mass, higher compliance, internal
damping, and heavier tracking force), a
Decca cartridge will not. You simply have
to clean your records if you plan to replay
them with a positive-scanning cartridge
like the London Reference. Otherwise dust
will pile up on the stylus, causing audible
mistracing and, if enough dirt accumulates,
outright mistracking. You will also have to
live with the louder reproduction of tics
and pops.
Third, because Deccas essentially use
one (large) magnet to translate vertical
modulations (stereo information) into
electrical signals, channel separation is
inherently not as high as it is with moving-
coil and moving-magnet designs with
separate magnets for vertical modulations.
As a result soundstage width suffers a bit
in comparison to the best conventional
cartridges, though not enough, in my
opinion, to be anything like a disqualifier.
Fourth, the Decca moving-iron
cartridge is a very-high-output device. The
current London models generate 5.0mV
(you read that right—five millivolts), which
could make them unsuitable for use with
certain contemporary phonostages that
may overload with signals that strong.
(Be sure to keep this in mind when
contemplating a purchase.)
London Reference Phono Cartridge
I could go on—and on—about the
practical and theoretical plusses and
minuses of these fascinating beasts. But
let’s look at the latest iteration.
The innards of the London Reference
cartridge are essentially the same as those
of the Decca Mk V that was reviewed in
Issue 2 of TAS. It still uses the “positive
scanning” technique, although its magnets
are now made of rare-earth materials,
its internal wiring is audiophile-grade,
and its stylus, as noted, is an expensive
ultra-low-mass fine-line diamond. (The
London Reference can also be ordered
with a 78rpm or mono LP stylus.) Unlike
the plastic-bodied Mk V, the Reference is
housed in a gorgeous two-piece aluminum
chassis to provide better damping and
shielding and, unlike the early Deccas, it
has four output pins (rather than three).
At $5295, it is also quite expensive.
I hadn’t had a positive-scanning
cartridge in my system for years, so I
wasn’t sure what to expect from the
London Reference. I think I was imagining
something like a really good Grado on
steroids. Well…I was wrong.
From the moment I dropped the
stylus into a groove, I knew I was hearing
something I hadn’t heard before—
something remarkable. I listen to a lot
of twentieth-century chamber music in
which strings are snapped or played with
vigorous bow strokes. It only took a few
bars of the Schnittke Quasi una sonata
[EMI] for me to realize that the pizzicatos,
collés, ricochéts, and martelés on this
remarkable LP were being reproduced
with breathtaking realism—not merely
better than what I was used to hearing,
but “breakthrough” better. As I’ve written
before, most analog rigs tend to screw
up the speed and duration of plucked
and forcefully bowed strings (and other
transients), making them sound either too
abrupt or too stretched-out in tone and
time. The London Reference reproduced
string transients with such “fool-you”
realism that I felt—and I seldom feel this
way—that I’d been carried substantially
closer to the absolute sound.
Happily, the London Reference’s
virtues did not stop with strings. Any
instrument played percussively—the
mighty Bösendorfer on Grazyna
Bacewicz’s Kleines Triptychon [Muza], the
Absolute Analog
through-the-floor bass drum on George
Crumb’s A Haunted Landscape [New World
Records], the stinging cymbals on Roberto
Gerhardt’s Libra [Decca Headline]—was
just that much more realistic than what I’d
come to expect from typical moving coils.
Decca’s famous, long-standing claim of
superior transient speed—which, frankly,
I thought would be invalidated by the
performance of contemporary mc’s—
still held up.
Moving-Iron Cartridges
The London “positive scanning”
design is a variation on the little-
used moving-iron (also called
“induced magnet”) principle.
How it works is less intuitive
than the workings of a moving-
coil or moving-magnet cartridge.
All operate on the principle that
a voltage is induced (created)
when there’s a magnetic field, a
conductor, and relative motion
between the two. When a
conductor cuts through magnetic
lines of flux, electrons in that
conductor are put into motion.
(This relationship between
electricity and magnetism was
discovered in 1820 by the Danish
physicist Hans Christian Oersted.
In his honor, the unit of magnetic
field strength is the oersted.) In
a moving-magnet cartridge, the
coils are fixed and the magnets
attached to the cantilever move
back and forth in response to
modulations in the LP’s groove.
But in a moving-iron cartridge,
the magnets and coils are both
stationary. The stationary magnets
instead magnetize a piece of soft
iron, which is moved by the stylus
in the groove (thus the alternate
name, “induced magnet”). Such
cartridges have very high output
voltages, on the order of 2–7mV.
The innovation in the London
cartridge is obviating the need
for a cantilever, and instead
connecting the stylus directly to
the moving iron. —Robert Harley
42 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
But the London Reference cartridge
wasn’t just preternaturally quick; it was also
downright natural in timbre. It is weird, and
rather astonishing, to hear a cartridge that
doesn’t have the slight rise in the upper-
midrange and treble or slight suckout in
the upper bass and lower mids of most
moving coils but that still maintains—
and, in the case of instruments played
percussively, exceeds—typical moving-coil
transient speed. The results are uniquely
“right”: a presentation with the lifelike air,
body, and fullness of tone color of a great
moving-magnet or moving-iron cartridge
without the comparative sluggishness or
opacity of either. While I wouldn’t say that
the London Reference was quite the equal
in very-low-level resolution of my then-
reference Clearaudio Titanium “Fingers”
moving coil—the more expensive
Clearaudio Titanium is a veritable sonic
vacuum cleaners when it comes to
picking up fine detail and an unaparalleled
soundstager—it was very, very close, with,
as noted, superior realism on transients
and timbres, even in the bass (which, with
the Reference, is naturally round, full, fast,
and deep) and treble (which was sweeter
and airier than the Clearaudio, though a bit
softer and less extended).
On vocals…well, the Decca has always
been famous for its way with voices. But
when you listen to a song you’ve heard a
hundred times, like Randy Newman’s “I
Love L.A.” [Warner], and suddenly realize
that you can not only distinctly hear the
two back-up singers—one male, one
female—going “ah, Ah, AH, AH!” in the
chorus, but can also, for the first time,
tell from the timbre of their voices that
one is Lindsey Buckingham and the other
Christine McVie (as the album jacket tells
you)…well, that’s pretty darn amazing!
The London Reference is far and
away the best non-moving-coil cartridge
I’ve ever heard and would’ve been TAS’
2006 High-End Cartridge of the Year,
if it didn’t have the bad luck of coming
up against the Air Tight PC-1, which
landed on my doorstep a week or two
after the London Reference and, frankly,
marginally outdid it in transient realism.
Even at that, I would have to say that the
London Reference is still the more natural
in timbre and very nearly the PC-1’s equal
in speed (though not in soundstage width
London Reference Phono Cartridge
or low-level resolution).
Now for the bad news. All of the
provisos that I mentioned above about
earlier Decca cartridges still apply:
(1) You will need the right tonearm,
preferably a damped unipivot or damped
straight-line-tracker that is happy with a
relatively low-compliance cartridge and a
relatively low VTF of 1.8–1.9 grams (I’ve
had good luck with the Kuzma Air Line,
less good with the Walker air-bearing
arm); (2) you will need a phonostage that
is capable of handling 5.0mV signals
without overloading (in my experience,
the Audio Research PH7, the Lamm LP2,
and the Aesthetix Io all fit the bill); (3)
you will need to clean your records and
the London Reference’s stylus regularly (a
gentle sweep with the Decca 2+2 Record
Brush should suffice for the stylus); and
(4) you will have to put up with less clean
tracing on well-worn discs and occasional
mistracking on really deep scratches.
If you’re willing to live with these
idiosyncrasies (and I grant that several can
be annoying), you’ll be hard put to find a
more lifelike phono cartridge. Oh, some
will beat it out here and others there, but
overall a properly functioning London
Reference is, indeed, a reference-quality
pickup—and I use it, along with the Air
Tight PC-1, as my reference. Just don’t say
I didn’t warn you about its quirks. TAS
Specs &
Pricing
May Audio Marketing Inc.
2150 Liberty Drive, Unit 7
Niagara Falls, New York 14304
(800) 554-4517
mayaudio.com
Type: Moving-iron cartridge with positive
scanning
Compliance: 15x10-6cm/dyne laterally,
10x10-6cm/dyne vertically
Input impedance: 47k Ohms (optimum 33k
Ohms)
Input capacitance: 100 to 300pF (optimum
220pF)
Output: 5mV at 5cm/sec
Recommended tracking force: 1.5 to 2
grams (optimum 1.8gm)
Price: $5295
 High-End Returns to its Roots:
The Third Annual
Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
T
he Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, now in its third year, was
held October 21–23 at Denver’s Marriott Tech Center
hotel. This show has expanded from its home-grown
beginnings to become a major event, attracting exhibitors and
attendees from all over North America.
The Rocky Mountain show has a distinctive vibe all its own—
one that serves as a reminder that the high-end audio industry
sprang from passionate enthusiasts working in garages or on
kitchen tables. As with the previous two events, this year’s show
featured an interesting mix of “mainstream” high-end brands
(Wilson, Thiel, JM Lab, VTL, Mark Levinson, Linn), esoteric
marquees (deHavilland, Audio Aero, DarTZeel, Eben), and quite
a few enthusiasts/designers looking for their first recognition
or showcasing outrageous inventions that will likely never
become production-line products.
We covered the show live at our Web site, AVguide.com,
and bring you here the most significant and best-sounding Rocky Mountain show-goers
products, along with a sampling of interesting prototypes and get registered
curiosities. —Robert Harley

Text and photography by Jonathan Valin, Robert Harley, and Neil Gader

The Absolute Sound February 2007 45

The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
Jonathan Valin on the Show’s Highlights (or poorer) man’s MAGICO Mini. The
Omega Max Hemp could be one of

L
ong gone are the salad days when high-end stereo stores flourished in those great bargains that come along
virtually every large town and you could read about something fabulous once in a paper moon—or it could be
in TAS, then go out and audition it at your local audio emporium. Now, a boondoggle. I plan to review a pair in
most of us have to travel to hear the latest and greatest, and for many the the near future to find out which.
hi-fi show is the place to travel to—the only stereo store where all the new
goodies are on display. Sounds Real Audio Room
As if to seal this point, attendance was way up at this year’s Rocky Mountain As was the case with the Gershman
Audio Fest, with visitors coming in from every corner of the country to Black Swans, I’ve not been a fan of
hear what couldn’t be heard elsewhere. As was the case in 2005, they were Wilson-Benesch loudspeakers, which,
rewarded with a very-good-sounding mix of mainstream and exotic. Though in the past, have sounded sumptuously
not quite as analog-oriented as it was in 2005 (or quite as uniformly fabulous- detailed and extremely free of box
sounding), the 2006 Rocky Mountain Audio Fest was still a feast for the ear. coloration but overly cool, passive, and
My beats were the big exhibit rooms on the ground floor and mezzanine analytical. Maybe it was the addition
of W-B’s own $9500 Torus Infrasonic
of the Marriott Tech Center, and the smaller suites on the second and some of
Generator (soon to be reviewed by
the fifth and ninth floors. With select LPs, a handful of CDs, and a wonderful
moi), maybe it was deHavilland’s $10k
CD-R of the Copland Third Symphony in hand, I traveled from room to room
GM70 amps and $5k Mercury preamp
to room. Here are the highlights.
(plus Cardas cable), but W-B’s newest
entry, the $15k 2.5-way floorstanding
Gershman Acoustics good transients, rich timbres, and terrific A.C.T., had all of the virtues of W-B’s
Over the years I’ve respected Gershman bass. (The Black Swan was reviewed by former entries (little-to-no box or driver
Acoustics loudspeakers but never really Anthony H. Cordesman in Issue 168 of coloration, an abundance of fine detail)
warmed up to them. This year I finally TAS.)
came around—or the speakers did. The
Gershman three-way Black Swan ($30k), Art Audio/Gill Audio/
with its ingenious sub-alignment system, Omega Room
is far and away the finest transducer I’m a big fan of any speaker that
Eli Gershman has designed. Driven sounds like a single-driver sound
by Red Rock Audio monoblocks and source, which is one of the chief
the Exemplar DAC/preamp, the Swan reasons why I prefer two-ways, ’stats,
showed very well on a variety of music, planars, and omnis to hybrids and
with a soundfield that was big and multiways. But…you can’t sound
spacious (though darker and not quite more like a single-driver source than
as boxlessly open as that of the MBL a, uh, single-driver source—and that
101 Es—for which, see Best of Show), is precisely what the $2695 Omega
Max Hemp loudspeaker is.
The folks behind the Max
Hemp actually use hemp for
their single full-range driver
(with whizzer tweeter). Stiffer
than paper, hemp, like paper,
has very little sonic signature Pretty as a picture: Wilson-Benesch
of its own. With its added A.C.T. speakers
strength it makes for a superb
driver material. The Omega
Max may not—by its very nature—
be one of the fuller-range speakers without many of their flaws. Sweet and
on the market, but it may be one of lovely in balance, supremely open and
the purer. Driven by the $7000 Art airy, with a front-to-back layering that
Audio Diablo SET amp, $6500 Gill was scarce on the ground at RMAF,
Audio Design Alana preamp, $2350 the A.C.T.s were impressive. I did think
Sheu-Analog ’table, and $2250 that two Torus subwoofers should have
Schroeder arm, it was virtually been used for best imaging—the folks at
colorless and boxless-sounding in Sounds Real Audio used only one and it
Speakers you can smoke? the midband, so beguilingly and should have been turned down a bit in
The Omega Max Hemps effortlessly natural on voice that it amplitude. Nonetheless, this was one of
made me think it might be a poor the better sounds at RMAF.

46 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
“I ain’t likely
to review this
number—it’s just
too big and weird.
But it’s worth an
audition if you have
a wide room.”
Welborne Labs/Cogent
Loudspeaker Room
What would an audio show be without
a few genuine oddities? I’ve already
commended one exceptional-sounding
example—the Omega Max Hemp
speaker. Here is another—slightly
more extreme—instance. The $58k
Cogent True-to-Life is a two-way horn
loudspeaker—a genuine giant combining
True-to-life, indeed: The Cogent
horn loudspeaker system
a horn-loaded mid/bass field-coil driver
that is said to work from 300Hz down
to about 50Hz with a horn-loaded
mid/tweet field-coil driver that works
from 300Hz up to 20kHz. Bi-amped by
Welborne Labs DRD45 and DRD300B
SET amps and fed from a vintage Studer
tape deck, the “True to Life” rather
earned its name. Though definitely a
48 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Wilson MAXX 2s with recording engineer par excellence Peter McGrath
single “sweet spot” loudspeaker, in that
spot it had remarkably lifelike presence
on voice, violin, piano, and guitar. I
ain’t likely to review this number—
it’s just too big and weird. But it’s
worth an audition if you have a wide
room, are “into” horns, and can find
the Cogents at a hi-fi shop (or much
more likely) at another hi-fi show.
Evolution Acoustics MM-
3 loudspeaker (Larkspur
Room)
Jonathan Tinn’s latest offering—the
mammoth Evolution Acoustics
MM3 ($33k) three-way—sandwiched
a central ribbon tweeter between
separate curved enclosures housing
two ceramic midrange drivers
and two giant woofers in a quasi-
D’Appolito configuration. Although
capable of considerable delicacy,
tonal sweetness, and lifelike imaging,
the MM3s were either underdriven
by the $18k 100Wpc Dartzeel
NHB-108 amps Jonathan was using or
inherently polite because they were sorely
stressed by the plucked strings, brass
fanfares, and big bass drum thwacks of
the Copland Third Symphony. On less
demanding material, however—like Joni
Mitchell’s “All I Want” from the great
DCC LP test pressing of Blue—they were
rather lovely on voice and dulcimer.
Audio Unlimited (Maroon
Peak Room)
In yet another turnaround, I found
myself impressed by the $48k Wilson
MAXX 2s—speakers that have not
always impressed me in the past.
Clearly part of the MAXX 2s’ newfound
appeal (for me) was attributable to the
source material—the great recording
engineer Peter McGrath’s fabulous
mastertapes (or, in this case, master-
data recorded to hard drive), including
simply phenomenal recordings of
the Copland Third Symphony, the
Rachmaninoff Third Piano Concerto,
and the Brahms Piano Quintet and Viola
Sonata. We probably could have been
listening to Dixie Cups and strings, and
I still would have been wowed by the
McGrath sound. As it was—driven by
very powerful but somewhat analytical
$40k Boulder 2060 stereo amp, the
$40k Boulder 2010 preamp, and the
$37k Boulder 2020 DAC (fed from
Peter’s hard drive), the MAXX 2s had
tremendous dynamic authority and slam
in the bass (and everywhere else, though
they tended to be a bit bright, rolled,
and clinical in the treble). Still, in a show
where the sound was slightly less across-
the-board fabulous than it was last year,
the MAXX 2s stood out.
The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest

JV’s Best of Show Tara Labs/MBL of America

Robert Harley
Reports on
Significant
Introductions,
High-Value
Systems, and
Interesting
Curiosities
Linn Debuts New Majik Line
In a show dominated by fairly esoteric-
Best of Show: The great MBL 101 Es looking gear, the new Linn Majik
products stood out not only for

L
ord knows I’ve raved before about the MBL 101 E Radialstrahlers—the their “ordinary” looks, simplicity of
$47,900 four-way omnis from Berlin’s Wolfgang Meletzky that lay fair claim operation, and mainstream appeal, but
to being the world’s best loudspeakers—and Tara Labs’ “Zero” interconnect for the terrific sound they produced.
and “Omega” speaker cable. But what’s a reviewer supposed to do when Meletzky’s The Majik line, which made its
speaker, his attendant electronics (the $74k MBL 9011 monoblock amps, the $19k North American debut at the show,
MBL 6010 D preamp, the $21k MBL 1621 A CD transport, and $21k MBL 1611 E is an attempt to bring Linn’s flagship
DAC), and cable guru Matthew Bond’s sensational wires keep showing so well at technologies developed for its more
hi-fi expo after hi-fi expo? If anything, the 101 Es’ astonishing openness, resolution, expensive products (specifically the
imaging, coherence, neutrality, and dynamic nuance and clout were even more in stunning CD12 CD player, Klimax
evidence this year in Denver. Everything I listened to through them sounded more preamp, and Chakra power amplifiers)
freed-up and alive than it did through other speakers I heard at the show—more
into mid-priced products.
like the real thing and less like reproductions coming out of a box or a screen. So,
The system included the Majik CD
player ($3500), Majik Kontrol preamp
once again, the 101 Es earn my Best of Show. (The MBL 101 Es—TAS’s 2005 Product
($3100), and Majik 2100 power amplifier
of the Year—were reviewed by JV in Issue 154. The Tara Labs’ Zero interconnects
($2650) driving a pair of Linn’s Ninka
and Omega speaker cables were reviewed in Issue 157.)
loudspeakers ($2000). In the demo, a pair
of Majik 2100 amplifiers
drove the Ninkas in active
Runner-Up GTT Audio/ (or AKTIV, to use Linn’s
Video Room terminology) configuration,
The reformulated versions of Dutch with Linn’s outboard
speaker designer Charles van Oosterum’s electronic crossover splitting
Kharma Midi-Exquisites, the $75k four- up the frequency spectrum
way floorstander I extolled in Issue 152, and one amplifier driving
sounded gorgeous driven by exactly both woofers and the other
the same MBL electronics that sent the amp driving both tweeters.
101 Es into orbit. However, you couldn’t The sound I heard was
find two more different presentations. extremely engaging and
Van Oosterum’s Midi-Exquisites are like communicative, highly
exquisite miniatures—all subtlety, grace,
detailed without being
analytical. I spent more time
and fine detail; Wolfgang Meletzky’s MBL
listening in the Linn room
101 Es are like giant landscapes—all bloom,
than in any other, simply
scope, and dynamic excitement. Both are
because I kept wanting to
great transducers, but I ended up slightly
hear “just one more track.”
preferring the MBLs because, when all Charles van Oosterum with Kharma’s That’s a good sign. Watch
is said and done, they sound less like
Midi Exquisites for a full review of the Majik
loudspeakers. components—they just
might live up to their name.

50 February 2007 The Absolute Sound


$995
Ron Sutherland shows off his
battery-powered Ph3D phonost
age
An Affordable Battery-
Powered Phonostage?
Acclaimed designer Ron Sutherland has
taken the circuit ideas from his terrific
$3000 Sutherland PhD battery-powered
phono preamp and created a $1000
version called the Ph3D, with some
clever tricks to reduce the build cost. For
example, the battery holder is formed
by bending the chassis metal rather than
requiring another internal component.
The array of conventional “D” cells last
1250 hours. Battery power results in lower
noise, which is particularly important in a
phonostage. The unit has adjustable gain-
and cartridge-loading, high-quality input
and output jacks, and high-end parts.
Rip Your LPs
For those of you who want to archive
your LP library to a music server or
portable music player, Channel D
Software has the solution with its Pure
Vinyl software for transcribing LPs.
When used with an outboard analog-
to-digital converter, this Mac-based
program takes in a digitized signal,
performs RIAA equalization in the
digital domain, and allows you to edit
and compile music tracks from LP.
What’s special is the cool user interface
that lets you see an on-screen graphic
representation of the LP you’ve
digitized. You can select start and stop
points by “scrubbing” across the virtual
The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
LP with a mouse, delete and
rearrange tracks, and access a host
of other functions. Price: $129. A
Windows version is in the works.
Horn Speakers on your
Desktop
A horn-loaded desktop audio
system? That’s right—Ferguson
Hill Studios has scaled down its
large horn system for the desktop
with the FH007 mini-system. The
$1195 system includes two horn
speakers, two direct-radiating
mid/bass drivers in spherical
enclosures, and a 16Wpc stereo
amplifier that can accept line-
level input from an iPod or
other source. The transparent
enclosures and horns make the
system seem to disappear—very
cool. The company is about to
introduce a matching subwoofer
with an 8" driver and 100W amplifier for
about $250. Ferguson Hill is distributed
in the U.S. by Ultimate Audio Video in
Deerfield, Illinois.
Great-Sounding Affordable
Gear
Three rooms at the show stood out for
the combination of great sound, low
price, and high value. The first was the
$1500-per-pair Dragonfly loudspeaker
from Soundsmith. This stand-
mounted two-way had a highly refined
presentation, a huge soundstage, and the
dynamics of a much larger system.
I was also taken by a new loudspeaker
from Joachim Gerhard the founder of
The strain-gauge phono cartridge makes a comeback—
no extra charge for the blue LED
the highly regarded Audio Physic line
of speakers. The Sonics were driven by
the Belles Soloist 3 preamp and Soloist 3
power amplifier that retail for just $795
and $995, respectively. The amplifier
puts out 65Wpc into 8 ohms and can
double its output power into 4 ohms.
Watch for a review.
Finally, I was greatly impressed by
the value offered in the Odyssey room.
The system was $5800, complete with
the Stratos 180W monoblock power
amplifiers ($2395 per pair), Tempest
preamp ($1125), and Odyssey’s
floorstanding loudspeaker. The products
are built to a high standard and produced
a sound that was better in many ways
than more expensive systems I heard at
the show.
Prototypes,
Inventions, and
Curiosities
A 1960s Idea Resurrected
The strain-gauge phono cartridge,
invented in the 1960s and soon
thereafter sold to Matsushita
(Panasonic), which let it languish,
seemed destined for the hi-fi museum
until the concept was resurrected
by Soundsmith and demonstrated
at the RMAF. As everyone knows,
a phono cartridge works by moving
coils within a magnetic field (or vice
versa in moving-magnet cartridges) to
induce a voltage. But in a strain-gauge
cartridge, the moving cantilever applies a
varying pressure on a tiny silicon rod. A
The Absolute Sound February 2007 53
The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
constant current (supplied by the phono
preamplifier) flowing through the silicon
rod is modulated by the cantilever’s
motion, creating an electrical replica of
the audio signal. Because the constant-
current source is in the phono preamp, a
strain-gauge cartridge must be used with
a companion phonostage.
The advantages include extremely
low moving mass (no coils or magnets
to move, which confers outstanding
trackability), wide bandwidth (response
to 50kHz), and no hum or susceptibility
to electromagnetic interference.
With a current source right there at
the end of the tonearm, designer Peter
Ledermann couldn’t resist adding a
bright blue LED on the cartridge to help
locating tracks in the dark.
The Power of DSP in
Loudspeakers
Digital signal processing (DSP) in
loudspeakers is such a good idea that
I’m surprised so few designers take
advantage of it. With DSP, a designer
can create any crossover slope he wishes,
equalize the system, and time-align the
drivers.
The advantages of DSP-based
With DSP crossovers, equalization,
and time alignment, along with a
compression-driver tweeter and massive
dipolar woofer arrays, the Emerald
Physic CS1 sounded shockingly good—
and for $4950 complete
54 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
“The DSP-based
Emerald Physic
CS1 is a
fascinating
product and at
a list price of
$4950 could
represent a
stunning value.” The world’s most outrageous power
amplifier—the Amber Waves
Audio monoblocks based on an RF
transmitting tube
power transmitters. A pair of 304TLs
is used in push-pull configuration to
loudspeakers were demonstrated by deliver 200W. Although the tubes have
Emerald Physic, a new company with long since gone out of production, the
a most unusual product, the CS1. manufacturer claims that there are plenty
The four-piece system employs a 1" available on the open market. The price
compression-driver tweeter mated to of the monoblocks: $42k per pair.
two 8" midrange units in one flat open
panel, coupled with another open panel A New Twist on Planar-
consisting of four 15" woofers in a Magnetic Loudspeaker
dipole configuration (two forward-firing, Technology
two rear-firing). A DSP unit from DBX Along with the Amber Waves
provides the electronic crossover and monoblocks, the strangest-looking
other processing. Six amplifier channels (and lowest spouse-acceptance-factor)
are required, although the amplifiers can product at the RMAF had to be the
be low power owing to the system’s high giant four-way quasi-ribbon-based
sensitivity (100dB/1W/1m). Panorama loudspeaker from Symposium
The demo I heard produced a super- Acoustics. The designer was closed-
precise spatial presentation, smooth and mouthed about technical details, but did
flat tonal balance, wide dynamics, and say that some aspects of the ribbon are
terrific bass extension without the
bass lumpiness one often hears in
hotel rooms. The downside is that
the CS1 is a “form-follows-function”
design, meaning that it has rather
utilitarian cosmetics and finish.
Nonetheless, the CS1 is a
fascinating product and at a list price
of $4950 could represent a stunning
value (the dual-woofer-column
version is $6750). Full production is
scheduled to commence in January.
World’s Most Outrageous-
Looking Amplifier
The most outrageous-looking
amplifier I’ve ever seen had to be the
Amber Waves Audio monoblocks.
These massive, 200-pound units are If Spouse Acceptance Factor isn’t
built around a 304TL tube, a high- a factor, the Symposium Acoustics
power device used in the 1940s as RF
Panorama might be for you

novel, including very loose diaphragm
tensioning, extremely light diaphragms
(Kapton), and very powerful magnets
(neodymium). Conventional cone drivers
loaded into a transmission-line enclosure
provide the bottom end. The prototype
(estimated price: $60k) had a sensitivity
of 93dB, and was demonstrated with
12W power amplifiers. The company
plans to bring the technology to
products “under $10k.”
Crossover-less,
Single-Driver Speaker
A small but passionate company
called Stereo Dave’s Audio Alternative
demonstrated their crossover-less,
single-driver Creation 650 loudspeaker.
The 6.5" driver is mounted in a deep
enclosure with an 8"-square baffle.
The $2300-per-pair Creation 650 can
be mated to the company’s Genesis 12
subwoofer ($895) for extended bass
response.
The sound I heard from the
Stereo Dave’s systems was amazingly
immediate, direct, and communicative—
probably the result of getting the
crossover out of the signal path. In
addition, the speakers completely
disappeared into the soundstage,
which was rich with spatial cues. Top-
end extension and dynamics were
surprisingly good for a single-driver
system.
$300k+ Megasystem from
Halcro, XLO, and Music
Giants
The show’s most ambitious system
had to be the room put together by
Halcro, Music Giants, and XLO Electric.
Occupying the show’s largest room (34'
x 60'), the system included Wilson Audio
MAXX 2 loudspeakers ($48k) driven by
two pairs of bridged Halcro dm88 power
amplifiers ($86k), and a Halcro dm10
preamp ($18k). Two Talon Thunderbird
passive subs ($22k) helped out in the
bass (as if the MAXX 2s needed it),
driven by two Halcro dm38 amplifiers
($19k). Crossover duties (between the
MAXX2s and the subwoofers) were
handled by a Pass Labs XRV1 ($6k). The
entire system was connected with $115k
worth of XLO’s reference-quality Signal
Delivery System cabling, comprising
all of XLO’s Limited Edition cables. A
Rives Audio PARC room equalizer ($3k)
The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
fixed some of the room-induced bass
problems, and a Wadia 521 DAC ($6k)
provided digital-to-analog conversion.
Total system price: $322,400.
The source for this cost-no-object
system was . . . downloaded music! A
tablet PC on a WiFi network accessed
music files stored on a computer that
had been downloaded from Music
Giants. Music Giants is the only
company offering full CD-quality,
uncompressed downloads. With this
system, you could access through the
tablet PC a huge music library with
uncompromised sound quality and have
it reproduced at the highest level. The
system’s intent was not only to show off
the sound quality of Halcro electronics
and XLO cables, but that downloaded
music doesn’t always equate to mediocre
sound. For the record, the file format
was Windows Media Audio (WMA)
lossless.
RH’s Best of Show
I
n a show of many terrific
sounding rooms, there
were a few standouts.
On an absolute level
(without regard for price),
I’ll have to say the MBL
101 E loudspeakers driven
by MBL’s top-of-the-line
electronics gets my top
vote. This system was so
alive, dynamic, spacious,
and convincingly musical
on a wide range of
material.
I also greatly enjoyed
the Gershman Black
Swan ($30k), which has
never failed to sound
wonderful at shows.
The Swans threw a huge
and open soundstage,
and delivered deep
bass extension.
Neil Gader
Wraps it Up
This was my first Rocky Mountain Audio
Fest (RMAF), and let me tell you this show
is a long, long way from Vegas, baby.
Except for my inability to stop humming
John Denver tunes, its funky, cottage-
high-end vibe made it a sheer pleasure to
attend. Fact is there are few contrasts in
high-end audio as bold as the comparison
between CES and RMAF. Vegas is Big
Audio—trade only, buttoned-down,
with the buzz of business tension in each
airless room. At Rocky Mountain, the
atmosphere is relaxed, and the consumer
prevails. RMAF is a gathering of fervent
true believers, where the faithful
rededicate themselves to that old time
religion of High End. Crowding the halls
are audiophiles of all persuasions: the
vinyl junkies, the monaural flat-earthers,
and terminal digiphobes, as well as the
byte-heads and tech geeks lining up to
lay hands on gear that ran the gamut
from the heavenly to the hopeless.
But all were united in a common
cause—the pursuit of great sound.
It’s also a world where small
companies exist under the radar
and even prosper on the crumbs
of word-of-mouth and user
newsgroup buzz. As one local
loudspeaker designer said, his
business is purely consumer-
direct—a euphemism for
Internet distribution and zero
dealer network. But in at least
one sense, RMAF is exactly like
CES—sonic quality was all over
the place. What follows are
examples of sound that to these
ears was nicely dialed in.
Soundsmith is a
cooperative of designers
who ply their skills under
the mentoring eye of
Peter Ledermann, an
audio designer, inventor,
and former Director of
Engineering at Bozak
The Absolute Sound February 2007 57

Soundsmith made quite an impression on
NG and RH with its $995 two-way mini-
monitor
Corporation. It produces MOSFET
minimum-feedback amps, a strain-
gauge cartridge and preamp with
corresponding circuitry for the strain-
gauge cartridge, and some speakers
that perked up my ears. Traditional in
appearance, both of these two-way
compacts sport a wide-bandwidth 1"
soft-dome tweeter. The larger Monarch
uses a 6" woofer (a 4.5" woofer is used
in the Dragonfly). The sonics were
Fresh Ayre: Debut electronics from
Ayre plus Vandersteen Quattros
equaled some of the show’s sweetest
sounds
The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
warm (not bloated), balanced,
and detailed, with great dynamic
punch and acceptable extension.
They reminded me of the
compact British studio-monitor
tradition at its best. Although
I was sitting well off-axis,
soundstaging along the long wall
of the room was excellent with a
strong central image on a Lindsey
Buckingham solo recording
featuring his incredible finger-
picking technique. I especially
like Soundsmith’s “have-it-your-
way” mindset regarding upgrades.
In this instance, both Firefly
models offer the option of ribbon
tweeters for $700 a pair. No
wonder Soundsmith’s motto is, “The IDS-25
“We have seen the future…and we
can fix it.”
(image, depth,
Even though Ayre Acoustics and spaciousness—
Vandersteen were shoe-horned in a small
room, the system had “star” written all
get it?) is the
over it. Not overpowering in scale, it was brainchild of
pure musicality in its ease and spacious retired McIntosh
soundstaging. The new Ayre Mx-R
monoblocks ($16,500/pr.) and K-1xe designer Roger
preamp ($7000) represent a stylistic Russell. It’s a 7.5'
departure for Ayre—their narrow
width and increased depth are today’s tower design that
popular profile. The Mx-Rs’ platform houses an in-line
is an ultra-rigid, aircraft-grade
aluminum chassis with circuitry array of twenty-
that improves upon Ayre’s zero- five 3.5" woven-
feedback fully-balanced designs.
Orchestral microdynamics
fiberglass drivers
were exceptional, no doubt due per side.”
in part to the twin power
transformers. With the Mx-R
outputting 300W into 8 ohms
and doubling that into 4 ohms
and analog courtesy of the
Linn LP12, the Vandersteen
Quattros ($6995/pr.) exhibited
a sense of control and liveliness
that was stunning.
The new Thiel CS 3.7
loudspeaker ($9900/pr.) is a
striking departure for Thiel. Its
silver-ribbed woofers, sparkling
concentric mid-tweeter array,
and rounded aluminum top cap
are aggressively eye-catching.
However driven by the silky
Thiel debuted its all new and striking CS new VTL MB-450 Signature
3.7 alongside VTL’s latest, the MB-450 monoblocks ($13,500/pr.),
monoblocks Marantz SA-11S1 SACD player
The Absolute Sound February 2007 59
The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest

IDS, a new kid on the block, 

demo’ed its 25-driver, crossover-less
IDS-25 loudspeaker
($3500), and Cardas wiring this system
was both dynamic and delicate. It also
produced the kind of natural soundstage
on some Mark Knopfler tracks that is
rare in this kind of show environment.
The new Thiel is an arresting improve-
ment over its predecessors. But a good
deal of the credit should rightfully go
to VTL. Beautifully turned out with a
luxurious extruded aluminum panel that
frames a complement of eight 6550
(or KT-88) output tubes, the MB-450s
demonstrated solid bass control and
pitch definition. These products promise Paired with jewel-like Nagra electronics, Verity Audio premiered the modular and
to be key releases in 2007. popularly-priced Rienzi
The IDS-25 (image, depth,
spaciousness—get it?) is the brainchild are all Cardas wire. Not surprisingly with near-electrostatic transparency.
of retired McIntosh designer Roger the IDS-25 was being propelled by a Low bass was a bit light but I expect
Russell. It’s a 7.5' tower design that room full of McIntosh gear, including room optimization might improve
houses an in-line array of twenty-five the massive MC501 monoblocks, performance. Expect pricing in the
3.5" woven-fiberglass drivers per side. MCD1000 transport, and MDA1000 $19,000/pr. range.
Because the drivers are full-range, the D-A, as well as an MS300 server. The Although the Verity Audio and
system is essentially crossoverless, yet sound was articulate without being edgy, Nagra exhibit was moved to a much
boasts frequency response down to tonally of a piece at any height position, larger space than planned, it didn’t
20Hz when used in conjunction with its and exceedingly clean. Its greatest spoil the debut of Verity’s new modular
outboard equalizer. Internal connections strength was a boxless, unified character speaker the Rienzi ($7995/pr.). With
60 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Third Annual Rocky Mountain Audio Fest
its two-way head unit (also available
separately at $3195/pr.) sitting atop
a sub-bass module, it was one of the
prettiest speakers at the show. Aided by
Silversmith Audio Silver interconnects
and speaker cable (interconnect, $1400
for a three-foot pair; speaker cable,
$2500 for a six-foot pair), the sound was
smooth and coherent with excellent low-
level detail. I listened to a combination
of vocal favorites from Lyle Lovett to
Rosanne Cash, and came away with an
1/4 PAGE AD
62 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
NG’s Best of Show GTT Audio/ Video Room
A
fter much teeth gnashing the Kharma room featuring the Midi Exquisite
MkII got my nod for best overall sound over the MBL room—by a nose.
What turned the tide for the Kharma was the experience of hearing a
particular piece of familiar music. When I sat down, “Black Magic Woman” was
playing—a song as loathsome as the “Macarena.” However, when Carlos Santana
launched into his solo, I began hearing details and dynamics I’d never noticed
before—the punch and ring of each guitar string, the skins of the drum kit.
The micro- and macro-dynamic interplay was stunning. But it was the meat-on-
the-bone lower-mids and bass that were the real surprises. I knew the Kharma line
could sound beautiful, but the lighter balance of smaller models made me wonder
if they could rock. (Not an issue at the MBL exhibit!) Truth is, the Midi Exquisite
system provided a combination of high end and high excitement like few consumer
or trade show encounters I’ve experienced over the last few years. True, its system
price will make anyone lacking the surname Gates or Buffet gasp aloud. But think
of it this way—it’s a steal when you consider that it sounds like a million bucks.
appreciation for the system’s expressive midrange detail and microdynamics. The top
end was particularly effortless and had the kind of bloom that I sometimes miss from
digital playback. The Nagra CDC-CD Player ($14,995), playing through Nagra’s PL-L
line stage and PSA amplifier ($8495 and $6595 respectively), was yet another stunning
exercise in miniaturization from the Swiss company known for its film-industry
recorders. The CDC is equipped with output, level, and balance controls, and both
XLR and RCA outputs. I’d like to hear this system again in a room more suited to the
scale of the Rienzi.
Audio Analogue of Italy has recently revamped its lineup to
stunning effect. Especially the Maestro integrated ($3495) and
its companion CD player ($2495). But the Enigma is something
else! It’s a 54Wpc CD-receiver with a tube preamp section that’s
designed to be inconspicuous on a shelf, yet capable of high
performance. Its all aluminum looks are to die for. Paired with
the right compact speaker, it should give new meaning to the
term “lifestyle high end.”
The VSM-MX is the latest iteration of Merlin Music System’s
floorstander. Driven by Joule Electra VZN-100 amps ($18,000/
pr.), the perennially musical Audio Aero Capitole CD player
($9000), and JPS cabling, it was a standout with translucent
highs, a wide open soundstage, and electrifying transients. Other
gear that caught my eye and ear were the new PS Audio Trio
control amplifier, a Class D design boasting 100Wpc ($1795),
the Digital Link 3 with a fully discrete output stage and USB
($1000), and new Power Plant Premier, which boasts 85%
efficiency and 1500W output ($2195). Noteworthy, too, was the
Amphitryon, a full-range planar-ribbon speaker from Analysis
Audio ($24,000/pr.) that was clean and fast as can be. It joined
Bybee and its roll-out of a new line of power conditioners due
to hit the market by early ’07. The Bybees will be priced in the
$995–$3495 range. Also impressive were the Flying Mole digital
electronics. The company’s PA-S1 preamp ($1595) and DAD-
M310 180W monoblocks ($995 each) smoothly reproduced an
eclectic mix of musical genres, ranging from the subterranean
blasts of Kodo drums to the buttery lilt of Jennifer Warnes.
TAS
 TAS Cover Story

NHT Classic
Three Loudspeaker
More honest than finicky
by Chris Martens • photography by AdamVoorhes

64 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

 TAS Cover Story

The Absolute Sound February 2007 65

 TAS Cover Story

A
sk any veteran audiophile to suggest good speakers in
the $800 price range and odds are that he or she will
name one of the many fine two-way bookshelf models
now available. This is a hotly contested market segment, so there
are plenty of attractive and sensibly price options to choose
from. But if you wanted my opinion, the speaker I’d propose
wouldn’t be a two-way model at all. Instead, I would direct your
attention to NHT’s brilliant new Classic Three—a three-way,
stand-mount monitor that reproduces music with refinement,
resolution, and imaging specificity that few affordable two-way
speakers can match.

Reveals subtleties
with effortless grace
Many of us instinctively think of the audio spectrum as having
three main constituent frequency bands—bass, midrange, and
treble—and a clear-cut advantage of the Classic Three is that
it provides three anodized aluminum drive units specifically
optimized to cover each band (the anodizing process is said to
eliminate the hard, “pingy” quality some listeners associate with
aluminum-diaphragm-equipped drivers.) By comparison, many
affordable two-way speakers can sound somewhat compromised,
as if their woofers are being forced to go higher and tweeters to
go lower than would normally be optimal. The Classic Threes,
however, neatly sidestep this problem by covering the middle
range of the music with dedicated 2" dome midrange drivers
that offer excellent transient speed, the ability to resolve details
well, and a healthy measure of dynamic punch.
NHT’s switch to the three-way format pays sonic dividends
at the top end of the audio spectrum, too, allowing use of an
incredibly light and responsive small-diameter (.75") dome
tweeter. This driver offers terrific dispersion and captures high-
frequency details with disarming ease and a near-complete
66 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
 TAS Cover Story

freedom from treble histrionics. Just be sure to take time to

install the NHT-provided, X-shaped, foam-rubber dampers that
go between the Threes’ midrange drivers and tweeters. Once the
damper is in place, the tweeter rarely sounds like a separate driver
at all; instead, it sounds like a natural integral extension of the
voice of the midrange driver, which is as things should be.
The one criticism I would offer of the midrange driver/
tweeter array may actually be a backhanded compliment: These
drivers are truth tellers that will faithfully report shortcomings, if
any, in associated components or program material, sometimes
exhibiting traces of edginess or momentary hardness on abrupt
transients. But the good news is that, in spirit, the Classic Threes
are more honest than finicky, meaning good affordable amplifiers
and A/V receivers can drive them effectively. At the same time,
however, the speakers offer more than sufficient resolution to
show why higher-performance ancillary components might be a
worthwhile investment.
Finally, completing the picture is a 6.5" woofer housed in a
sealed enclosure. This driver doesn’t offer as much low-frequency
reach as I’ve heard from the best competing bass-reflex two-
way systems (e.g., the Paradigm Studio 20s), but it compensates
through extremely good pitch definition and control. This design
choice makes perfect sense given that the last thing you would
want to match up with the Classic Three’s responsive midrange/
tweeter would be a sluggish, lugubrious-sounding woofer. Bass
extends down to about 45Hz, but enthusiasts who crave deeper
bass response should perhaps consider NHT’s Classic Four
floorstanders ($1800). The Fours are based on the Threes, but
add an excellent, built-in, passive subwoofer that pushes bass
response down to the mid-20Hz range.
Put these elements together and you’ve got a bookshelf speaker
that reveals subtleties in music with the effortless grace typically
associated with more expensive designs. I put on “I Believe I’ll Go
Back Home” from master blues harpist Little Hatch’s Rock With
Me Baby [Analogue Productions, LP], and marveled at the way the
Classic Threes showed Hatch’s amplified harmonica dancing along
The Absolute Sound February 2007 67
 the fine line between a saturated but clean sound and a deliberately
TAS Cover Story raw and overdriven one. In fact, the Threes made it obvious that
Hatch not only plays the harmonica, but his microphone and
amplifier as well, picking and choosing moments where he deftly
pushes the amplifier into momentary distortion. Many affordable
speakers would have homogenized Hatch’s harmonica sound, but
the Threes instead caught all the little details that show Hatch’s
true mastery of the instrument.
Even more impressive was the way the Threes handled the
sound of Count Basie’s ensemble on “One-Nighter” from Basie
Jam [Pablo, LP]. First, the Threes nailed the cool, reedy voice
of Basie’s electric organ, and gently highlighted the economical
yet soulful accents and fills Basie contributes throughout the
song. The Threes also showed how the bandleader uses the
spaces between notes to create unexpected pools of silence
that showcase distinctive phrases about to be played by other
band members. Best of all, the Threes created rock-solid images
of the ensemble on stage so that, as solos are traded back and
forth, the listener comes to appreciate the song as a roundtable
conversation between performers who not only play but also
listen with great intensity.
The point, really, is that the Classic Threes show the myriad
small ways in which master musicians make choices and
adjustments as they perform, partly to perfect their tone and
partly to respond to fellow players. When speakers get this good,
listeners feel they are being let in on precious musical secrets—as
if granted the privilege of hearing the music from the inside
out, just as musicians often hear their own performances. I’ve
enjoyed this experience with fine mid-priced and expensive
speakers before, but rarely with ones that cost as little as the
Classic Threes do.
As I see it, whether listeners are spending $800 or $80,000 on
a new pair of loudspeakers, they want the same thing—namely,
to get as close as possible to the heart and soul of the music. No
other affordable bookshelf speaker I’ve heard does a better job
of that than NHT’s Classic Threes. TAS

Specs &
Pricing
NHT
6400 Goodyear Road
Benicia, California 94510
(800) 648-9993
nhthifi.com

Type: Three-way monitor loudspeaker

Driver complement: .75" dome tweeter, 2" dome midrange driver,
6.5" woofer
Frequency response: 45Hz–20kHz
Sensitivity: 86dB
Impedance: 8 ohms
Recommended amplifier power: 150 watts maximum
Dimensions: 7.5" x 13.75" x 10.375"
Price: $800

ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Linn Sondek LP-12 turntable and Ittok LVII tonearm; Benz Micro ACE
L phono cartridge; Sutherland Ph3D phonostage; Musical Fidelity kW
SACD player; Nuforce P8 preamplifier and Reference 9 Special Edition
monoblocks; Kharma MP150 monoblocks; Furutech Alpha Reference
interconnect and speaker cables; Sanus Steel Foundation stands; RPG
and Auralex room acoustic treatments

68 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

Equipment
Report

Tannoy Autograph
Mini Loudspeaker
A solid glimpse of the state-of-the-art

Tom Martin

I
first auditioned a pair of BBC LS-
3/5a mini-monitors in the 1970s and
was shocked to find that they ran toe-
to-toe with a set of giant electrostatics.
Duly chagrined, I’ve tried to be careful
ever since about bringing too many
assumptions to the reviewing table when
it comes to small speakers.
The extensive debate on the
AVguide.com forum about the MAGICO
Mini illustrates the emotional problems
created by small speakers. Some of
our readers have argued that if there
are speakers at similar prices that “do
more,” then smaller speakers that “do
less” should be rejected out of hand
as bad values and poseurs. If this logic
appeals, then this review is not for you.
Consider the Tannoy Autograph Mini. As
you can see, these look like a giant Tannoy
floorstanding speaker from the 1950s,
except that they’re only 13.5" tall. Very
cool.
Of course, everything has a price,
and the Autograph Minis are $1800 per
pair. Fortunately, there is a real speaker
backing up that price. The cabinet finish
is impeccable. Rather than creating a
fashion statement, Tannoy has taken the
design seriously. It has loaded the Mini
with the smallest dual-concentric (tweeter
placed at the center of the woofer) driver
ever. The tweeter is made of titanium
and response goes out to 54kHz. The
speakers and crossover are integrated in
a way that reduces phase errors.
The sound from these little guys is
plenty impressive. Tannoy has wisely
decided not to try to make the Mini
sound like a miniature Wilson MAXX II,
i.e., seemingly flat from 20Hz to infinity.
The Mini has a midrange-dominant
sound that is lively and clear, but not
70 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

harsh or brittle. Music really swings on
the Mini, with a very natural dynamic
flow for each instrument. This speaker
gets the midrange right, both dynamically
and harmonically. I think the Mini works
musically for this reason, and also because
it is so coherent.
In the bass, the Minis are an exercise
in artful trade-offs. The upper bass
is emphasized, leading to very good
definition. Impressively, the bass roll-off
of the Minis doesn’t result in a thin sound
or bass-bloat at certain frequencies.
However, let’s be clear—midbass is light
and low bass non-existent. I simply didn’t
find that these limitations got in the way
of a lot of the music (though this is not
the speaker for hip-hop or the White
Stripes).
The Mini’s imaging is amazing, too, with
the sound rarely seeming to be trapped in
the boxes, though like most small speakers
soundstage height is restricted. The high
Tannoy Autograph Mini Loudspeaker
frequencies are smooth and naturally
extended, again allowing each instrument
to sound open and dynamically real. The
tweeters are very revealing, though; so
you’ll want to use a good front end.
These speakers are not going to fill a
large room at 105dB (though maximum
SPL is rated at 111dB at one meter).
On the other hand, the dual-concentric
driver arrangement makes them ideal
as nearfield monitors. From 2 or 3 feet
away they sound phenomenal, and I think
this is partially because the distance from
the tweeter and woofer to your ear is
always the same no matter how far away
you are. This is easily the best desktop
monitor I’ve heard. So, sure, the Minis are
expensive for their size and application,
but how many other sub-$2000 audio
products give you a solid glimpse of the
state-of-the-art? TAS
Specs &
Pricing
Tannoy Ltd. North America
335 Gage Avenue, Suite 1
N2M 5E1
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada
(519) 745-1158
tannoy.com
Type: Two-way bass-reflex loudspeaker
Driver complement: 4" fiber-pulp woofer
and .75" titanium tweeter
Frequency response: 68Hz–54kHz (–6dB)
Sensitivity: 88dB
Nominal impedance: 8 ohms
Dimensions: 5.25" x 13.5" x 8.25"
Weight: 8.8 lbs.
Price: $1799
Associated Equipment
Naim CD5i CD player; Panasonic DVD S27
DVD player; Naim Nait 5i and Sonic Impact
Super T amplifiers; Nordost Blue Heaven
interconnects and speaker cables; Usher S-520,
Onkyo D-TK10, and PSB Alpha B speakers
The Absolute Sound February 2007 71
Equipment
Report
Plinius SB-301 Amplifier
T
he Plinius SB-301 has been in
my system only a week, but
even in that short time span this
310Wpc New Zealander has reignited
music in ways that are nothing short of
enthralling. The largest beneficiary of the
Plinius’ charms, by far, was my compact
loudspeaker reference, the ATC SCM20-
2. “Transformational” might sound like
too strong a word, but it applies.
At the time I wrote the review of
the ATCs, I was fairly confident that I’d
extracted as much of their potential as I
could, and had accurately described them,
including shortcomings that resided
mostly in the treble octaves. I knew the
ATCs, an acoustic-suspension design
with 83dB sensitivity, hungered for power
in the same way that a Hummer craves
fossil fuel. But it was not as if they’d
been wanting for powerful amplification.
Over the months they’ve been driven by
the crème de la crème of high-power amps,
including integrateds like the Plinius 9200,
the Chapter Précis, and the MBL 6011, as
well as Class D amplifiers like the Spectron
72 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
A Sneak Preview
Neil Gader
Musician III and Rowland Model 201
monoblocks. They’d all taken their best
shot, often with excellent results. I wrote
the ATC review in spite of a feeling that
there was still untapped performance to
be had from a treble that seemed slightly
crimped at times rather than expansive,
and dynamics that sounded constrained,
especially in the mid and upper bass.
This is all a roundabout way of saying
that the SB-301, a high-bias Class AB
solid-stater has permitted the ATCs to
finally and fully (I think) clear their throat
and shrug off the dynamic handcuffs.
Bryn Terfel’s rosewood baritone now
emerges with unbridled gusto. The Plinius
unlocks the tendency of the ATCs to
compress mid- and upper-bass dynamics,
without which a presentation is dulled
and diminished in texture and complexity.
It sculpts an orchestral soundstage with
confidence and grace, layering air and
images to the back of the hall. It creates
dimensionality and openness with soloists
and orchestral sections alike. It extracts
midbass extension and clarity from the
system and by doing this increases the scale
of the soundstage. Thanks to a lowering
of the noise floor, the micro-halos and
comet trails that can cling to transients
have all but vanished. Solo violin, for
example, is not only harmonically more
extended but sweeter (a characteristic
that seems hardwired into the SB-301’s
personality), as if the arteries that send
treble information to the tweeter had
received a sonic angioplasty.
These conclusions are preliminary,
and it remains to be seen just how good
the SB-301 truly is. What I do know is
that thanks to the Plinius the ATCs are
without doubt a better speaker than I
gave them credit for being. How the amp
fares driving the demanding MBL 121
will be its next test. TAS
Elite Audio-Video Distribution
(800) 457-2577 x22
eliteavdist.com
Price: $4995
Equipment
Report

NuForce S9 Loudspeaker
A matter of some controversy

Robert E. Greene

B
efore you even hear a sound,
you know this one is something
different. Symmetric driver array
speakers are common enough, and the
cabinet, though a little unusual in shape
and visual texture, is basically still a
box. But what is this with the tweeter?
It is down in a round hole, like a horn.
Designer Bob Smith of SP Tech and
co-designer Casey Ng of NuForce like
to call this “waveguide-loading” rather
than horn-loading or even shallow-
horn-loading. But whatever you call it, it
is not the way most consumer speakers
treat their tweeters, although similar
“waveguides” are more common in pro
monitors such as those from Mackie and
Genelec.
There is logic behind it. The waveguide
makes the tweeter transfer energy to the
air more effectively at lower frequencies so
one can use a lower crossover frequency
(the S9s are fourth-order Linkwitz-Riley
at 1.25kHz, and some of SP Tech’s other
models run the tweeter down even lower).
Moreover, the more efficient coupling of
the tweeter diaphragm to the air makes
for lower distortion and greater output
capability.
This may seem like techno-babble,
but it works. The S9s are extraordinarily
clean-sounding, and they will also play
really loudly for a speaker of moderate
size—without losing that cleanness. The
measured distortion levels are comparable
to electrostatics, and the listening
impression is of ultra-pure sound.
In addition, the $5500 S9s have a very
“black” background, with the carefully
damped cabinet presumably contributing
here. Their ability to reveal the details
of sound expanding into ambient space
is startling: Try the Delmoni Plays Ysaÿe-
Kreisler-Bach recording from Water Lily
(reissued by John Marks Records) to hear
something stunning along this line.
74 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
NuForce S9 Loudspeaker
The S9s are not phase-linear, but the
recessed tweeter time-aligns the drivers.
Perceived transient behavior is excellent.
The mid-tweeter-mid arrangement min-
imizes bounce off the floor, so the
sound arrives at the listening position
unimpeded. Things like drum kits are
remarkably convincing and well defined.
The S9s also have good bass extension
(–2dB at 40Hz, 24dB/octave roll-off)
for a smallish speaker, and the bass
integrated nicely into my room, as well.
For absolutely deepest bass, you will need
a subwoofer, but for most music most of
76 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
the time the bass is covered.
Treble is all there, too—indeed, a little
more than all there. The extreme top
of the S9s takes off into the wild blue
yonder. You will notice the increased
“air” in high percussion, for example,
from the extra energy in the top octave.
Cymbal crashes come across well—too
well, as it were—compared to what is on
recordings.
But the S9s are rather more different
from other speakers of similar overall
frequency extension than such simple
descriptions of bass and treble would
suggest. These differences are enough
to make the speaker a matter of some
controversy; as always, you will need to
listen for yourself.
First of all, the S9s are directionally
sensitive, especially horizontally. At
30 degrees off-axis, where many box
speakers have hardly changed from on-
axis except in the extreme top, the S9s
are down something like 4dB or more
from 4kHz on up. Since this is an aspect
of the waveguide and thus a deliberate
part of the design, you need to listen
almost exactly on-axis horizontally—and
vertically, too. Beware the careless demo!
You may never hear what the speaker is
capable of unless you position yourself
exactly right.
On account of their steep off-axis
roll-off, the S9s put less high-frequency
energy in the room on the whole than
do “wide-dispersion” speakers. To my
mind—and ears—this is very much to
the good. Live music usually has very
little top end in the reverberant field. (I
wrote about this in TAS many years ago.
You can see my original article on how
this works in concert halls, “Records and
Reality: How Music Sounds in Concert
Halls,” on regonaudio.com.) And the S9s’
combination of essentially flat response
on-axis but rolled off-axis behavior sounds
natural, like a live concert. Incidentally,
the roll-off is very regular, without large
dip-and-return phenomena. We are not
speaking here of induced colorations, but
rather of a natural in-room balance from
reduced higher frequencies and freedom
from room effects. But it does make the
S9s sound different from those with less
control of dispersion in the top end.
It is often said that speakers with wide
radiation in the higher frequencies image
better. For listeners sitting off to the side
there is some modicum of truth in this.
But only a centered listener can hear
correct stereo anyway (time of arrival is
wrong for off-center positions), and for
a centered listener imaging is better if the
speaker is spreading less high-frequency
energy around the room.
In practice, the controlled-dispersion
S9s image superbly for a centered listener,
aided not only by their controlled radiation
pattern but also by their coherence:
NuForce S9 Loudspeaker

They really do function essentially as a

point source, with all that provides for
imaging behavior. And with the ultra-low
diffraction of their smooth waveguide,
they do a good job with recordings like
the somewhat playful outside-the-speaker
images of Tiden bar gaar [Opus 3].
The S9s do many fundamental audio
things superbly well, but how do they
actually sound? In overall balance, they
are basically flat and neutral. The only
significant tonal caveat is that they are
somewhat irregular, with some ups
and downs in the 1kHz–10kHz range
compared to the smoothest speakers.
There is a dip in the 1–2kHz range and
comparatively a bit of extra zip in the
octave or so above 2kHz. (Don’t even
think about the switch on the back of
the speaker that ups the 2–3kHz range.)
I know that acoustician Vilhelm Jordan
determined years ago that musicians
typically like a little extra zing around
2kHz, but a little cut in the 2–5kHz
range with the Z Systems rdp-1 made
string sound, for instance, more natural beautiful on, say, Dvorák’s “Silent natural timbre and precise positioning,
and accurate, and indeed quite magically Woods” [Dorian]. Both the cello and the and people sounded like people. Even
big Steinway here were fantastic. How test CD announcements (“left channel”)

Specs &
good to hear the top piano notes so free could be intriguing in their realism.
of distortion. In any case, the intrinsic And on Crusin’ with the Desotos [Wilson

Pricing
Nuforce, Inc.
356 South Abbott Avenue
Milpitas, California 95035
(408) 627-7859
nuforce.com
Type: Two-way stand-mounted loudspeaker
Driver complement: Two 6.5" aluminum
mid/bass drivers, 1" textile-dome tweeter,
waveguide-loaded
Frequency response: 40Hz–25kHz
Recommended amplifier power: Up to
200Wpc
Sensitivity: 89dB
Nominal impedance: 4 ohms
Dimensions: 9" x 22.5" x 17.5"
Weight: N/A
Price: $5500
Associated Equipment
Classé CDT-1 transport and DAC-1;
Benchmark D-to-A converters; Z Systems
rdp-1 digital preamp and EQ device; Plinius
12 and Bryston BP-25 preamps; Bryston
14B ST and Nuforce Reference 9 amplifiers;
Liberty Audio Suite and Liberty Praxis
measuring equipment
resolution of the S9s enables one to hear
into the action and ambience of complex
music in a very rewarding way, regardless
of tonal balance.
The S9s did well on the ultimate test,
reproduced-versus-live music. As it hap-
pened, I was doing much of my listening
to them during a time when my orchestra
(St. Matthew’s Chamber Orchestra) was
preparing for a concert. So when I listened
to things like the Sitkovetsky/Bach Goldberg
Variations, in an arrangement for string
orchestra [Nonesuch], I had an almost
immediate memory of the real sound of
a string orchestra. Few speakers fail to
be humiliated by such a recent memory
of reality. The S9s were really convincing
in this nearly direct comparison with live
music. And with their unstrained dynamic
behavior, they were convincing on large-
scale music like full orchestra, as well. The
famous Byron Janis Rachmaninoff Third
Piano Concerto on Mercury was very well
done from top to bottom.
Voices were surprisingly realistic in their
Audio], the vocal in “I’m Ready” was
especially convincing. Instrumental
presence could be superb, too. The
gorgeous recording by cellist Ofrah
Harnoy of Schubert’s Arpeggione sonata
[BMG] all but put the cello right in front
of you, so clean and natural was the
sound and precise the imaging, though
the cello was slightly less “soft” tonally
than usual.
To me the S9s embody so many
effective and unusual ideas that they
unquestionably need to be heard and
thought about. One might hope for a
bit smoother mid/upper-mid/lower
treble. But that aside, will the controlled
radiation pattern and the associated
approach to overall room sound seem
as wonderfully natural to you as it did
to me? Listen for yourself, and be sure
that you listen positioned correctly.
Then think about what live music
really sounds like. I think you will come
away as impressed as I did. TAS

78 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

Equipment
Report
Wireworld Silver Electra 52 and
Stratus 52 Series Power Cords
W
ireworld has taken a fresh
look at the power cord, and
in so doing has produced a
line that runs counter to conventional
wisdom. The five models in the 52 Series
bear little physical relation to the heavy
and unwieldy things audiophiles are used
to. Wireworld’s AC cords are defiantly
lightweight and flat in profile, and pliable
enough to negotiate corners—critical
when hunting for outlets. I listened to
two of the new models—the second-
from-the-top Silver Electra ($700) and
the entry-level Stratus ($100).
The Silver Electra uses OCC (Ohno
Continuous Casting) silver-clad copper
conductors and silver-clad brass contacts
in a composite insulation, which was
chosen over single-material insulation for
its ability to absorb high-frequency energy.
As David Salz, president and chief designer
for Wireworld, explains, the flat geometry
reflects a coiled conductor design which
“exploits inductive and capacitive filtering
effects.” In other words, the point is to
pass only the 50/60Hz AC power signal,
while attenuating other frequencies to
prevent line noise and harmonics from
“infiltrating the component’s power
supply.”
The Silver Electra has a balanced
midrange, a rich bass response that’s
80 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Counter to conventional wisdom
Neil Gader
solid and well defined in pitch but not
overly controlled, and excellent dynamics.
Backgrounds and silences between
notes are as quiet as I’ve experienced.
The Silver Electra is mellow and dark
in overall character; sibilance is kept in
check; and hard transients are lightly
rounded rather than honed to a razor
edge. As a result, when a player’s hand
glides up the fingerboard of a string
bass the metallic growl of the strings is
not quite as pronounced. Soundstaging
is unerringly neutral, neither laid-back
nor forward. However, during Patricia
Barber’s “Hunger” from Mythologies [Blue
Note], the high-octane rhythm section
wasn’t presented with quite the pinpoint
imaging I expect from this track.
The Silver Electra elegantly balances
the qualities of two of my favorite power
cords—delivering the hard-charging
dynamism of the Virtual Dynamics
Reference and the naturalistic spatial
qualities of the Kimber Palladian.
Although it doesn’t quite capture the full
impact of the snare from Elton John’s
“Someone Saved My Life Tonight” on
Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy
[Island], or the sustained piano notes
during Tom Waits’ “Take It With Me” on
Mule Variations [Anti/Epitaph], in both
instances the differences are subtle. In
keeping with the Silver Electra’s slightly
darker personality, cymbals suggested a
different flare pattern and pitch with the
Wireworld than with the Kimber—the
Wireworld imparting a broader spread
and slightly deeper tonality, while the
Kimber seeming to be pitched a little
higher and crisper, with a more compact
spread.
The Wireworld Stratus relies on less
expensive materials than the Electra, but
at a fraction of the price it imparts the
essence of its more expensive sibling in a
slightly warmer, softer version. As it’s not
as lively or open as the Silver Electra, it
should be matched with components
proportionate to its price. And that goes
for the Silver Electra, too—an excellent
power cord that consistently performed
at its best when coupled to the best gear.
TAS
Wireworld
12349 SW 53rd Street, Suite 201
Cooper City, Florida 33330
(954) 680-3848
wireworldcable.com
Prices: Silver Electra, $699.95/2m; Stratus,
$99.95/2m
Equipment
Report

Pioneer S-2EX Loudspeaker

Bridging the divide

Neil Gader

B
y offering qualities we typically
associate with audiophile
speakers as well as those from the
pro-monitor world, Pioneer’s EX Series
bridges the divide between two distinct
listening cultures. It combines a recording-
studio ethic, rigorous construction
quality, and most significantly, technology
plucked directly from the playbook at
Pioneer’s pro-audio “skunkworks,” the
highly regarded TAD (Technical Audio
Device) division.
Though TAD’s first home-audio
effort, 2003’s M-1 speaker, was critically
acclaimed, its $40,000 tag priced most
of us out. The more down-to-earth EX
Series was designed and built at Pioneer’s
Speaker Design Center in Paris by a team
comprised of TAD and Pioneer engineers.
Andrew Jones, the chief designer of the
M-1, served as sound advisor, and the
EX Series also received feedback from
sound engineers at London’s legendary
AIR Studios.
The $6000 S-2EX is a three-way, stand-
mount compact in a bass-reflex enclosure.
The baffle has a gentle curve in it, as
well as a backward slope, that serves to
time-align the transducers at the listening
position. Weighing in at over sixty pounds,
the cabinet is bolstered by multiple layers
of laminated MDF, ranging in thickness
from 30mm to 100mm; the side panels
are curvilinear to reduce internal standing
waves. With its massive internal bracing,
the enclosure’s resemblance to a ship’s
hull is striking.
As with the TAD M-1, a concentric
driver unifies the tweeter and midrange
transducers. Although it’s a dead ringer for
the M-1’s driver, the EX midrange cone
is magnesium rather than the M-I’s far
more expensive beryllium. In either
case, break-up modes don’t appear
until well into the ultra-sonic range.
The beryllium tweeter, however, is
pure TAD, and TAD technology informs
82 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Pioneer S-2EX Loudspeaker

the bass cone, as well. Here the diaphragm

is of one-piece construction (as opposed
to the more commonly found separate
center-cap), which Pioneer feels adds
greater rigidity while pushing resonances
outside of the cone’s audible frequency
range. Finally, the huge 65mm voice coil
has been engineered for extreme power
handling and dynamic headroom.
Sonically, the S-2EX isn’t hobbled
by the usual constraints of a compact
speaker. It may sit on a stand, but it speaks
with the voice of a three-way through
and through. As its high-powered studio-
monitor bloodline implies, the S-2EX
is designed to play at prodigiously loud
levels that would harelip any number
of sophisticates from the high end.
Orchestral scale is remarkable for a
speaker of this dimension; symphonies
spring to life, with the walls of the venue
seeming to breathe like a bellows.
The S-2EX doesn’t subdue dynamics,
either. Concert grand pianos are not
submissive instruments—at close range
the energy and transient attack from any

Specs &
nine-footer will churn your insides. In this its character is mostly determined by
regard, the only other speaker of this size the recording. The downside is that bad

Pricing
Pioneer Electronics
P.O. Box 1540
Long Beach, California 90810
(800) 421-1404
pioneerelectronics.com
Type: Stand-mounted, bass-reflex
loudspeaker
Driver complement: 1.4" concentric tweeter,
5.5" concentric midrange, 7.12" woofer
Frequency response: 34Hz–100kHz
Sensitivity: 86.5dB
Impedance: 6 ohms
Dimensions: 11.5" x 22.25" x 16.75"
Weight: 62 lbs.
Price: $6000
Associated Equipment
Sota Cosmos Series III turntable; SME V
pick-up arm; Shure V15VxMR cartridge;
MBL 1531, Simaudio Moon Supernova, and
Sony DVP-9000ES digital players; Plinius
9200 and MBL 7008 integrated amps;
Tara Labs Omega, Nordost Baldur, Kimber
Kable BiFocal XL; Wireworld Silver Electra &
Kimber Palladian power cords; Richard Gray
line conditioners; Sound Fusion Turntable
stand
84 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
that compares is another compact three-
way, the MBL 121.
In terms of tonal balance, this is one
of the more neutral speakers I’ve heard in
some time. Its midrange seems spot on;
its treble is highly extended if a little dry
at its limits; and bass response extends
deep into the midbass with perceivable
reserves below 40Hz. Its upper bass and
lower mids (the bugaboos of compact
speakers) never seem to run short. Cabinet
resonances and port anomalies are so low
that you quickly forget this is a bass-reflex
design. There is also a sensation of weight
in the mids that deepens the presence of
male and female singers. Both jazz singer
Claire Martin, from Linn’s Too Damn Hot,
and a cappella specialist Laurel Massé, on
Feather and Bone [Premonition], exhibited
good body and chest resonance.
The S-2EX communicates a precision
sound geared to resolving details at
all levels, micro and macro. Even
familiar recordings take on a greater
complexity and a physicality bordering
on the tactile. Like any great speaker,
recordings are not enhanced by syrupy
colorations—the S-2EX exposes every
blemish, as if illuminating them in high
definition. The upside of such resolution
is that the best recordings have never
sounded better. Even familiar chestnuts
seemed completely refreshed, as if I’d
unknowingly acquired a newly remastered
version. From the opening bars of Järvi
and the Cincinnati Orchestra’s reading
of Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra [Telarc],
each orchestral section is clearly defined
in space. From the immediacy of low-
level drums and winds, to the ripeness
of plucked strings, and later, the elegance
of massed strings decaying into the
acoustic of Music Hall, the sound was
effortless and expansive. During Vaughan
Williams’ Antarctica [Naxos], the speaker
resolved the bronze waves radiating from
the cymbals and the tenderness of the
celeste with low-level detail I’d never
heard before. Even difficult-to-sort-out
cello lines or the rumblings of the organ
were multifaceted, not just undefined
throbs. The trombone and brass sections
Pioneer S-2EX Loudspeaker
assaulted me with energy, and the
crescendo was so horrifyingly powerful
that I needed to trim the volume.
However, if I had to single out a
performance characteristic of the Pioneer
that trumped all others it would be image
focus. It possesses a driver coherence
comparable to the best two-way mini-
monitors, but with the bone-crushing
power of a three-way. The kudos goes
to the concentric driver—a design that
I’m often not a big fan of, though this
one has won me over. Its remarkably
uniform off-axis response offers a wider
than normal sweetspot. Andrew Jones
of TAD explained that, because of the
transducer’s relatively shallow throat
and the fact that the midrange cone
behaves as a waveguide for the tweeter,
the transducers match each other’s
directivity at their respective crossover
points. The benefits are improved power
response and the absence of hollowness
86 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
(the cupped-hands effect). And because
there is no beaming, this point-source-
like performance nails the exact position
and angle of something like a concert
grand on stage. It’s also tailor-made for
reproducing the soloists and the deep
layers of voices in a large chorale—in
fact, the more voices the merrier.
The only area where there might be
a “cultural” disagreement about the
S-2EX is the character of its treble.
Tonally, I think its response is near dead-
bang neutral. But with Rutter’s Requiem
[Reference Recordings], cello transients,
the rattles of a tambourine, or the top
strings of a violin can seem exposed,
lacking a cushion of air for harmonics
to ride upon. Also, Sinatra’s smoky voice
on “Angel Eyes” from Only the Lonely
[Capitol] exhibited a slight hardness and
a less yielding character. This was the
one area where I could foresee the fur
flying—enlivening the debate of studio
monitor versus audiophile speakers. Some
will find the tweeter a revelation in terms
of resolving detail; others will regard it
as a bit too business-like, controlled, and
clinical. I found amplification and cabling
were crucial as well. My only regret is that
I didn’t have the new Plinius SB-301 on
hand. It’s an amplifier that has already
made me reassess the performance of
other components in the audio chain,
including speakers. (See my Sneak Preview
on p. 74.)
I’ve nothing but profound admiration
and respect for the Pioneer S-2EX. I’ve
never experienced a larger envelope of
performance from a stand-mounted
speaker. It’s not a flowery romantic, but
its brand of musical truth is seductive,
nonetheless. While there will never
be one speaker that suits everyone’s
taste, the Pioneer S-2EX should be
required listening for any self-respecting
audiophile. TAS
Equipment
Report
Mark Levinson Nº 436 Monaural
Power Amplifier
A 35-year tradition of excellence continues
O
f all the gear I’ve had the
good fortune to own over the
course of the past two-and-a-
half decades, the Mark Levinson Nº 31
Reference CD transport, Nº 35 digital-to-
analog converter and Nº 38S preamplifier
easily stand out as some of the finest
components to grace my listening room.
Few will disagree that the Nº 31 was an
absolute work of art when it came to both
sound and build-quality. (Still makes me
grin to think about how incredibly cool it
was to show off that motorized lid to all
my audiophile buddies.) In combination
with the Nº 30 DAC (as well as the more
affordable Nº 35), these two stunning
pieces made for arguably the best CD
playback available at the time.
The Nº 38S was also beautifully
crafted, and while it embodied the same
kind of sonic sophistication that has been
the hallmark of Mark Levinson products
since the company’s inception back in
the early 70s, I found the preamplifier
to be a bit less engaging than expected,
88 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Sue Kraft
and perhaps too polite. It was all-in-all
still a nice unit, though, and one that I
never had any remorse about buying. The
only thing I did regret back in the early-
to mid-90s is that I never completed the
system I had worked so hard to assemble
with Levinson amplification.
So it was with much anticipation that I
awaited the arrival of the Mark Levinson
Nº 436 monoblock power amplifier for
review. I was also quite excited at the
prospect of hearing how these $12,500,
350Wpc brutes would mate with the
stellar imaging and accuracy of a
loudspeaker like the B&W 800D. Would
my decade long wait to finally hear a pair
of Levinson amps in my system meet my
expectations? At the risk of ruining the
ending for those who are actually able
to resist reading the conclusion first, I’m
afraid I knew the answer to that question
nearly straight out of the box, and have
heard nothing in the months to follow that
would change my mind. The 436 is easily
one of the best and most pleasurable
amplifiers I’ve had in my system. The 35-
year tradition of excellence continues.
One aspect of the Levinson’s
performance I did have a change of heart
about over time was whether or not this
amp was as “laid-back,” as my initial
impressions indicated. After first listening
with the Focus Master 3 loudspeaker, I
paired the 436 with the B&W 800D. While
it still didn’t have the fireworks of, say, a
Krell amp, the presentation seemed more
dependent on the recording than on any
inherent characteristic of the amplifier.
Another contributing factor could very
well have been the more up-front nature
of the B&W versus the Focus Master 3.
Whatever the reasons, the match between
the 436 and 800D seemed particularly
good.
Listening to Aaron Neville’s rendition
of the Sam Cooke classic “Respect
Yourself,” from Bring it on Home…The
Soul Classics, [Burgundy Records], the
last thing you’d describe this amplifier
as being is laid-back. The 436 can crank
Mark Levinson Nº 436
Monaural Power Amplifier
Specs &
Pricing
Mark Levinson
A Division of Harmon Specialty Group
3 Oak Park
Bedford, Massachusetts 01730
(781) 280-0300
marklevinson.com
Type: Solid-state monaural power amplifier
Power: 350Wpc into 8 ohms; 700Wpc into
4 ohms
Number and type of audio inputs: One
each, balanced XLR and unbalanced RCA
Dimensions: 17.75" x 7.65" x 20.21"
Weight: 85 lbs.
Price: $12,500
ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Meridian 808, G08, and Marantz PMD-
320 CD players; Van Alstine Ultra DAC;
Meridian G02 control unit, Sonic Euphoria
passive, and Van Alstine Ultra preamps;
Meridian G57, Atma-Sphere Novacron OTL,
and McCormack DNA-500 power amps;
Coincident Super Eclipse, Von Schweikert
VR4jr, and B&W 800D and 704 speakers;
Coincident TRS, Paul Speltz anti-cable,
and Harmonic Technology speaker cables;
Harmonic Technology and Audio Magic
interconnects; Cardas RCA to XLR adapters;
Elrod and JPS power cords; Bright Star
Audio and Symposium Svelte shelves;
Chang Lightspeed Encounter, PS Audio
Ultimate outlet; Echo Busters and ASC room
treatment
90 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Technical Info
The Nº 436 monaural power amplifier has been designed as a single-
chassis unit to accommodate the needs of both the discriminating
music lover as well as the current trend towards home-theater
applications. In an effort to appease the space conscious,
the 400 series has been made more compact than previous
Levinson amps (3" lower), while still maintaining an overall
appearance that is unmistakably Mark Levinson. The 436
can be mounted precisely in any standard equipment
rack or placed on any standard shelf. For trickier custom
installations, Levinson also offers shelves made specifically
for the 436, affording proper ventilation and cable routing.
Anyone who has sliced a finger on a razor sharp external
heatsink will appreciate the 436’s thermal management system.
It utilizes a new crosscut internal heatsink whose extrusion are visible
only from a 3" x 10" opening in the top panel of the chassis. At lower
temperatures, convection-cooling causes currents to flow vertically
through the chassis. As temperatures rise, two thermostatically-controlled
variable-speed whisper fans located at the front and back of the heatsinks
draw cool air from behind the faceplate and through the horizontal
channels of the tunnel-like heatsinks, exhausting out the rear panel. (The
tunnel is isolated to prevent dust from settling on and possibly damaging
any of the amp’s internal circuitry.) I’ve never been particularly keen on
amplifiers that use fans for cooling, as they are invariably noisy and can
often be heard during quiet musical passages. In the case of the 436’s
whisper fans, I never noticed they were running, not even when the
amplifier was being pushed hard. And I did listen for them.
In addition to the safety afforded by the internal heatsink, the 436 also
provides a pair of handles on the back panel for lifting the unit, as well
as for protecting the rear connections. (The trend among manufacturers
not to offer any means to lift heavy amplifiers has long been one of my
pet peeves.) The back panel also includes a pair of custom loudspeaker
binding posts, XLR and RCA input connectors, and a variety of control
devices and communication ports. The front panel sports a spiffy pair of
silver aluminum wings attached with standoffs to the main black chassis, as
well as power and standby buttons and the classic Mark Levinson logo.
When it comes to internal circuitry, the 436 shares many design features
with previous versions of Levinson amplification, as well as “trickle-down”
technology developed for the flagship Nº 33 and Nº 33H. Based on a truly
balanced topology, the 436 houses a massive power supply with a high-
capacitance, low-noise toroidal transformer and four large capacitors
totaling a whopping 80,000pF of energy storage. For power distribution,
oxygen-free copper bus bars improve the efficiency of the amplifier
and eliminate variances commonly found with typical wiring harnesses.
To help maintain the signature Levinson “house sound,” the carefully
chosen output stage is the same as that used in previous iterations—eight
matched pairs of bipolar output devices. In addition, ”adaptive biasing”
is used to manage the output stage’s power source for enhanced Class AB
operation without excessive heat build up or wasted energy. And rather
than compromise with less costly circuit board materials, Levinson chose
Arlon composite, as it is said to allow for a more precise transmission of
the AC signal. SK
Mark Levinson Nº 436
Monaural Power Amplifier
with the pros. Even at the highest volume
levels my ears could tolerate, bass control
was absolutely rock-solid. Images were
locked in place as well, with no hint of
congestion or smearing. The equally
impressive midbass was punchy and
robust, while vocals were as full-bodied
and textured as I’ve heard from this
artist.
What I enjoyed most about working
these amps hard was that I never felt
assaulted afterwards. As contrary as it
may sound, there was an overwhelming
sense of effortless power that was
invigorating yet relaxing at the same time.
And I loved the precise definition, tight
control, and authoritative dynamic punch
in the deep bass as well as the midbass.
The 436 seemed to make music “pop”
from the loudspeakers. And when you’re
talking about making a speaker like the
B&W 800D “pop,” that is one special
treat, indeed.
Shifting gears a bit, Aaron Neville was
certainly fun, but it was Keith Jarrett’s
The Carnegie Hall Concert [ECM] that
impressed me the most, revealing the true
finesse and sophistication of the 436 and
its abilities to adeptly draw the listener
into the music. Three-dimensionality was
sensational. The wall-to-wall spaciousness
was infused with a wealth of rich detail
that didn’t seem to have a beginning or
end, along with images as beautifully
92 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
sculpted and layered as I’ve heard.
Listening to track three, separation was
superb; each key-strike of the piano was
clear and distinct, effortlessly flowing as if
on wings across the space in front of me.
The first time I listened to this recording
with the Levinson amp, I’ll have to admit
to backtracking the Meridian 808 CD
player at least a half dozen (or more)
times just to verify I wasn’t imagining
what I was hearing. This is the closest I’ve
felt to recreating the wholeness of a live
performance in my listening room. Makes
me wish I could have been at Carnegie
Hall to actually witness the event.
As seductively and involvingly as the
436 rendered Latin guitarist Jesse Cook’s
“Cancibn Triste” on Obsession: New
Flamenco Romance [Narada], I never found
this amplifier to be too polite. (In my view,
excessive politeness can ofttimes equal
boring.) Once again, three-dimensionality,
resolution of detail, and separation were
superb. I also found the violin to be
especially natural with nice texture and
tonal color. As amplifiers go, I’d give
the 436 very high marks for musicality.
And listening to old favorite Nickel Creek
[Sugar Hill], I’m not ashamed to admit the
vocals on “Out of the Woods” brought
a tear to my eye. They were absolutely
gorgeous—full, natural, and textured—
the best I’ve heard on this recording. The
robustness and definition of the midbass
also deserve another mention, as they
added a whole new dimension to the bass
fiddle. The detail and pinpoint imaging
of the string plucks were also the best
I’ve heard on this disc.
It’s tough to find any fault with an
amp like the Levinson. In a side-by-side
with the McCormack DNA-500 I did
find the high frequencies of the 436 to
be just a tad soft. This explains my initial
impression that the 436 leaned just a bit
to the dark side. (Funny thing, though,
after listening to this amplifier for just
a day or two it doesn’t seem dark at all.)
The McCormack actually performed
surprisingly well against the 436 and is in
my view a top contender at its price point.
But the Levinson in pretty much every
regard easily justifies its $5000 premium
over the DNA-500.
For me, this hobby has always been
about connecting to the music. As
ruggedly built and aesthetically pleasing as
the 436 may be, it would just be another
cold hard piece of machinery full of
parts without the emotional connection
that it provides, and that I believe we
all seek. The exceptional performance
of this classic Levinson amplifier will
surely impress, but it will be the masterful
ability of the 436 to engage the listener
that earns it a permanent home in your
system. If I were a rich woman, I would
buy this amplifier in a heartbeat. TAS
Equipment
Report
Quad ESL-2805 Loudspeaker
H
ave you ever had a reference
component in your system for
years and sold it because you
felt that something else just had to be
better? Perhaps my biggest audio regret
is selling my Crosby-modified Quad
ESL-63s with their matching stands. The
major Crosby modifications to the stock
ESL-63—designed by Richard Lees and
implemented by Jerry Crosby—included
a much stiffer frame, far better internal
wire, parts, and connectors, a thinner dust
cover, a more transparent grille, and other
improvements. Crosby’s beautiful wood-
finished floor-to-speaker stand raised the
speaker about 18 inches off the floor,
so the panels were at ear level, and the
stands could be mass loaded with sand
or shot. The full Crosby modifications
vaulted the very good performance of
94 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Compelling and addictive
Jim Hannon
the stock 63s to reference quality. Sure,
I’ve lived with speakers since then that
have moved more air or were better in
certain specific areas like macrodynamics,
frequency response at both extremes, and
bass authority, but in each case I sacrificed
some of the musicality, coherence,
transparency, and realism I had grown
accustomed to with the Crosby Quads.
Within their limits, both that speaker, as
well as my latest pair of original (recently
refurbished) Quads have given me more
moments when I thought I was listening
to the real thing than any other speakers
I have owned . . . and perhaps that I
have heard. Many thought the Crosby
modifications were able to wring the
last ounce of performance out of Peter
Walker’s brilliant design, but now comes
a new version from Quad itself, the ESL-
2805, that may very well execute the “old
man’s” design even better. To be sure, the
ESL-2805 is far more than just a welcome
cosmetic upgrade to the already excellent
(and still available) ESL-988.
One of the pleasant surprises offered
by the ESL-2805 is that it reduces the
already low distortion of the ESL-
63, yielding even better transparency,
coherence, soundstaging, and transient
quickness. Instruments and voices
sound even more natural and lifelike.
For example, the timbre and inner detail
of the cello is absolutely striking on the
Bach Suites for Unaccompanied Cello
[Mercury/Speakers Corner], performed
by Janos Starker. The cello is a very telling
instrument for loudspeaker evaluation,
and on the 2805, as Starker traverses
its range, you’ll notice there are none
Quad ESL-2805 Loudspeaker

of the crossover distortions, suck-outs,
or discontinuities between drivers that
plague virtually all multi-driver designs
to some degree. With this new Quad, the
cello sounds like the real thing and so do
guitars, trombones, voices, and pianos.
You won’t hear aberrations in timbre
between drivers, or, in the Quad’s case,
between panels—just a stunning musical
naturalness and realism.
While I did expect the 2805 to excel in the
acknowledged areas of Quad’s strengths,
I was unprepared for the improvements
in dynamic range, bass extension, control,
and weight. The cello sounded even
better on these speakers than on my
beloved Crosbies, without any upper-bass
leanness but with a natural richness one
associates with that instrument. Stand-up
bass on a wonderful jazz recording like
Basie Jam [Pablo/Analogue Productions]
is spot-on—full-sounding yet without
any bloat or sluggishness. The low end
of the piano benefits from added power
and weight, providing a better foundation
for that instrument, but one can still
cause the panels to occasionally lose their
composure on a fortissimo from something
like the Beethoven Appassionata sonata
[Harmonia Mundi], but at somewhat
higher volume levels than with the 63 or
Crosby. Microdynamics on these speakers
are first-rate.
While Quads of all stripes get massed
strings and voices right, an added bonus
with the 2805 is that full orchestras sound
not only richer but also more powerful.
Admittedly, a large horn system or great
dynamic speaker like the Eben X-3 is
even better at reproducing hard transients
and macrodynamics than the 2805, but
listening to Giulini conduct the “Dies
Irae” of Verdi’s Requiem [EMI] on the
Quad is still quite thrilling, even if the
sound is a bit dynamically compressed.
The welcomed higher dynamic ceiling
of the 2805 makes it more suitable for a
wider range of music beyond small-scale
classical and jazz. I found myself pulling
out rock albums that I typically keep in
their jackets when I’m listening to Quads.
Eric Clapton’s guitar soared through

Design Elements the Quads on Cream’s Wheels of Fire

[Polydor/Simply Vinyl], and the 2805s
even acquitted themselves quite well on
The inspiration for the 2805 came from several visits by Quad’s David electronica selections from the Barcode
Patching to the legendary listening room of SME founder, the late Alistair Brothers’ Swipe Me [Universal], where
Robertson-Aikman (also see last issue’s Industry News), where two sets of the lightning-quick impact of the kick
nude ESL-63s were set up at right angles, their panels rigidly mounted on drum and percussion propel the music
high-mass custom frames, and topped off by hundred-pound weights. (For forward.
more on this fascinating set up, see Ken Kessler’s excellent ode to Quad, Image focus is another improvement
Quad: The Closest Approach.) Hearing what the panels were capable of over the 63, and it may even better the
when manufacturing constraints were removed, Patching asked the Quad fine performance of the Crosby. Most
engineers to come as close as possible to the structural integrity Aikman large panels flap in the breeze a bit, which
had achieved, but in a product that could be manufactured. The Quad causes images to smear, reducing clarity
team-effort significantly increased the mass of the frame and base, while and focus. The 2805 has a rear brace and
adding a damped connecting brace from the top of the speaker to the base stiffer frame that keep the panel firmly in
to tighten up and triangulate the structure. These changes not only keep its place (see sidebar). Just listen to the new
the speaker from rocking back and forth, but also improve bass response reissue of the Shostakovich Symphony
and dynamic range while reducing distortion and smearing. Additionally, No. 9 [Everest/Classic Records], or many
the mounting of the panels within the frame has been reinforced, a brace of the Lyrita recordings. The images are
has been added to the metal grille, and the grille apertures have been rock-solid and particularly on the Lyritas,
widened to reduce rear reflections from the back grille. Besides the rear the soundstages are breathtaking. This,
brace, the most obvious external change is the speaker’s new and greatly too, is first-rate performance.
improved cosmetic appeal. The most likely question for Quad
Quad has continued to improve the quality of its ESLs by bringing aficionados is how the ESL-2805’s
most of the component manufacturing and production in-house. For midrange compares with that of the
example, the delay lines used to be outsourced to a third party, but are original Quad (57). In many respects
now manufactured by Quad, improving reliability and preventing arcing the ESL-57 is similar to an excellent
of the panels. The panels themselves are now capable of higher excursions SET amplifier, possessing phenomenal
and sound pressure levels, and are now used in the 2805 and 2905, as well transparency and clarity in the midrange,
as in the latest versions of the 988 and 989. but with limitations elsewhere. In terms
Because the Quads are dipoles, you’ll need to spend some additional of midrange performance alone, the stock
time with placement and perhaps room treatment to realize the full ESL-63 was somewhat veiled compared
potential of this speaker. I preferred the heavy-duty floor-coupling system, with the stunningly beautiful and open
with its massive spiked feet that ground the speaker securely to the floor, ESL-57, whereas the Crosby Quad,
to the flat feet that Quad also includes. You can also use the spiked feet to particularly on its matching stand, was the
change the rake of the speaker to raise the height of the image. JH original’s equal. While the 2805 is superior
to the ESL-57 in many other areas, it falls
96 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Quad ESL-2805 Loudspeaker

Paul Seydor comments

Not long ago while evaluating another speaker,
I deliberately didn’t listen to my long-standing
references, Quad 988s, for almost a month. When
I hooked them back up, it took maybe about ten
seconds of listening before I thought, “Man, this
is really low coloration.” That may help explain
why I greet with apprehension, if not dread, any
attempt to improve upon what I have elsewhere
called Peter Walker’s masterpiece—the ESL‑63, of
which the 988 is the direct, though much better
built and thus superior, descendent. Can’t they
just leave well enough alone?
No, they couldn’t, and I’m glad they didn’t. In my
opinion, the 2805 is the best Quad speaker ever
made—this from somebody who owns, loves, and
all but genuflects before the 63/988 and the 57. My principal worry proved groundless: the overall tonal balance—
that is, the 63/988’s neutrality and vanishingly low coloration—remain unchanged, as do its transparency and that
legendary disappearing act. Indeed, the new model is even more transparent—subtly cleaner, clearer, and purer.
(Quad’s Dave Patching claims a reduction by half of the distortion from the 988, which already boasts figures more
typical of amplifiers than speakers, i.e., 0.1%.) So what is different? Jim Hannon—with whose evaluation I concur
in almost every particular—has already described how much heavier, more rigid, and more substantial the housing
is. The sonic consequence is a noise floor lower than that of the 988, which itself has one of the lowest around.
Inasmuch as no speaker makes a sound if no signal is present, how can it have a noise floor as such? Because all
speakers are made from materials that have resonant characteristics and other vibrational properties that once
excited—in other words, every time the speaker attempts to reproduce a signal—muddy or otherwise contribute to
the reproduction, usually to its detriment. This is why good designers pay so much attention to materials, cabinets,
bracing, and mounting.
For structural strength and integrity, the housing of the 988 represented a welcome and substantial improvement
over both previous Quad ESLs; that of the 2805 is by an order of magnitude superior still; reproduced sounds
now emerge from a background of almost digital‑like silence and blackness. I am not exaggerating. Almost every
experienced listener, including the most jaded and cynical, who has heard these new speakers in my listening room
has remarked upon this effect in one form or another with absolutely no urging from me.
Two other aspects of the 63/988 are also improved: bass response and ultimate loudness capability. The 2805 still
cannot overwhelm a room with the kind of pressurized bass you get from woofers—no dipole planar can—but
there is a noticeable increase in both bass extension and power that while not dramatic is not subtle, either. As for
loudness, no, the 2805 is still not for headbangers, but if you’ve been tempted though never quite persuaded by
past Quads because they play almost loud enough, then you owe yourself an audition of this new one.
If you own and love the 63 or 988, let me reassure you that yours are still among the small handful of the finest
loudspeakers ever made for home use, so I’m not about to suggest you replace them with this one: On most music
the differences are quite small, the changeover cost large, even allowing for Quads’ high resale value. But on an
initial purchase—the 988 remains in the Quad lineup—go for the 2805 if you can at all manage the additional
$2350/pair.
To give you some idea of how special this speaker really is, one evening I put on Belafonte at Carnegie Hall. I’ve
listened to cuts on this albums dozens, perhaps hundreds of times to check some aspect or other of equipment
performance, but that night I wound up doing something I had not done in over fifteen or twenty years: listening
to it all the way through for the sheer pleasure of it. And so it went with favorite CD after treasured LP.
Inasmuch as no one can truly say he or she has heard every product, even every plausible product, the phrase
“the best” should be used strictly subjectively, as rhetorical strategy rather than literal claim. In that spirit, then, let
me conclude by stating that for my money—no idle phrase here, as there is no way the 2805s are being returned—
the best speaker of the twentieth century is now the best speaker of the twenty-first. These are henceforth my
reference monitors.

98 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

Quad ESL-2805 Loudspeaker
Specs &
Pricing
Taiga llc
310 Tosca Drive
Stoughton, Massachusetts 02072
(781) 341-1234
taigallc.com
Type: Full-range electrostatic loudspeaker
Frequency Response: 37Hz–21KHz (-6dB)
Impedance Variation: 8 ohms nominal
(range: 4–15 ohms)
Sensitivity: 86dB
Dimensions: 27.36" x 40.94" x 15.16"
Weight: 76.6 lbs.
Price: $9000
ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
SME 20-12 turntable; VPI Aries (TNT V
platter, bearing, SDS), Graham 1.5 (w/2.2
bearing), Koetsu Black and Sumiko
Celebration cartridges; Musical Fidelity
Tri-Vista 21 DAC; Art Audio Vinyl Reference
and Quad 24 phonostages; MFA Venusian
preamp (Frankland modified); Quad II Classic
and PrimaLuna Prologue Six amplifiers;
Quad ESL-57 (PK modified) and Hyperion
HPS-938 loudspeakers; Nordost Valhalla
100 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
slightly short of the original’s “reach-out-
and-touch-you” midrange magic. Mind
you, it’s only in comparison with two of
its brethren that the 2805 suffers, as it also
has a wonderful midrange, and perhaps,
without its grille cloth and raised on
floor-to-speaker stands, like the Crosby,
it would be their equal in the midrange.
However, those hooked by the ESL-57’s
midrange may be unwilling to give it up—
even though the 2805 is a better overall
speaker.
Perhaps the biggest compliment I can
give any speaker is that the ESL-2805
made me lose track of time again and
again. It sounds so “right” that I found
myself drawn to the music, to the artistry
of the performer, and to the essence of
the composition. The natural timbre,
coherence, clarity, and subtle details
that one hears in a live performance
kept me transfixed until my reverie was
interrupted by the sound of the cartridge
hitting the end of the record. Admittedly,
if you are a headbanger, or must hear the
deepest notes of a pipe organ or synth,
or like to have your speaker system move
so much air that it flaps the legs of your
trousers, you should look elsewhere, or
try the larger ESL-2905. Yes, you could
add a subwoofer or two, but I was never
completely successful doing this with the
Crosby or the original, as even the very
good subs I tried impinged on the Quad’s
purity.
The Quad ESL-2805 is a superior
execution of Peter Walker’s ground-
breaking design and vaults the per-
formance of the Quad even higher up in
the reference category. The addition of
mass, rigidity, and bracing to the frame,
better parts, as well as improvements in
the manufacture of the panels produce a
result that is one of the most musically
satisfying in high-end audio at any price.
The dynamic ceiling and bass-performance
envelope have been extended, so that
the Quad may be a viable alternative to
people who listen to more than small-
scale works. Moreover, the 2805 produces
music with a realism and naturalness that
are compelling and addictive. Prepare to
get sucked into the music—and into the
soul of the performance. TAS
 THE
Cutting Edge

Wadia 270se CD Transport, Series 9

DAC, and 581 CD/SACD Player
Alan Taffel

Patek Philippe is a Swiss watchmaker believed, in many circles, to produce

The Patek Philippe of
digital audio?
the finest timepieces on earth. The pride of owning a Patek accrues both from its superb
craftsmanship and from an understanding of the skill required to make one. You see, despite the
fact that most of these devices never need winding and offer functions that can include moon
phase, multiple time zones, or a perpetual calendar that takes into account the varying days of the
months, Pateks are entirely mechanical. In a world of electronic quartz movements, that makes
these watches something one rarely encounters: a highly advanced anachronism.
Wadia’s flagship digital front end—to call it a CD player, particularly in light of functionality
to come, seems a disservice—reminds me of nothing so much as a Patek Philippe timepiece.
The 270se transport and Series 9 Decoding Computer and Dual-Mono DACs are, to say the
least, beautifully turned out. The chassis are hewn from thick, solid slabs of brushed aluminum;
switches gives authoritative tactile feedback; and moving parts, such as the CD drawer, operate
with a divinely silken sensuality. These components, right down to the nicely organized remote,
have something more than heft—they have gravitas.
Within these luxurious confines reside the aforementioned anachronistic elements. This is
not to say there is a dearth of technology; on the contrary, a case can be made that the 270se/
Series 9 is the most technically advanced digital front end extant. Even the most humble sub-

104 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

The Cutting Edge
component—such as the digital volume
control that most manufacturers dispatch
with a chip—is the object of intense
analysis, creative design, and meticulous
implementation. However, it is also
true that these products hew to a set of
technical principles that have long since
been abandoned by virtually every other
high-end manufacturer.
Consider, for example, the matter of
filtering the digital signal. When CDs
were an embryonic format, the filters
available in off-the-shelf chipsets were
crude and sonically deleterious. Wadia
was a pioneer in the use of software-
based algorithms to do the job far more
accurately and benignly. Since then,
chipsets have incorporated most of those
advanced techniques and are used in even
very expensive units. At the same time,
another school of digital design advocates
the simplest possible signal path and has
done away with filtering altogether. For
its part, Wadia remains confident that its
software-based filter algorithms trump all
other approaches.
Similarly, the proliferation of separate
transports and outboard DACs now
seems so very 90s. By and large, the
industry has shifted to all-in-one players
at every echelon. There are sound
reasons for this reversal. Separate chassis
106 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
require some means of interconnection.
Unfortunately the industry standard,
S/PDIF, is inherently prone to jitter due
to its serial, asynchronous nature and to
the fact that the receiving unit must derive
an imbedded clock signal. Single-chassis
players circumvent this problem entirely;
one master clock controls everything
within a rigidly accurate synchronous
environment. The sonic benefits, as a
bevy of designers have discovered, are
manifest.
Wadia wears the
connoisseur’s suit
While Wadia does build integrated CD
players (see below for the separate review
of the model 581), the flagship system
announces the company’s conviction
that ultimate sound quality can only be
achieved with separate chassis. Indeed,
Wadia has gone even further in this
direction by separating not only the
transport and the model 921 DAC, but
by cleaving the latter into a mono pair
and by interposing a fourth chassis, the
931 Decoding Computer, to handle
digital switching and volume and system
control. Of course, such an arrangement
is a prescription for jitter run rampant,
but Wadia counters that by means of a
high-precision, thermally compensated
master clock within the 931. Utilizing
a proprietary signaling scheme called
ClockLink, the other chassis’ clocks are
slaved to the master, virtually eliminating
inter-chassis jitter.
In one last technical flourish that had
me doing the time warp again, the Series
9 relies on an abandoned means of digital
audio connectivity: ST glass fiber, which
is not to be confused with the sonically
wretched TosLink plastic fiber. Here
again is a technology which showed early
advantages, but which was overtaken
by subsequent developments—in this
case highly improved drivers for coaxial
interconnects. Nonetheless, Wadia believes
glass is still the best available bit-transport
medium. So while the 931 controller, in
its role as a digital source switch, offers
fiber, coax, and AES/EBU inputs, only
the fiber option supports ClockLink.
Furthermore, fiber is mandatory between
the 931 and the dual 921 DACs.
Regardless of the potential merits of
Wadia’s approach, which I will address
in a moment, it is incontrovertibly an
expensive one. The cost of fabricating
separate high-end chassis—here amplified
by the quad-chassis configuration—is
only the beginning. Well-designed digital
inputs and outputs are surprisingly
The Cutting Edge
Tweaking Excellence
dear, and represent yet another savings
enjoyed by single-chassis designs, which
don’t need them. The DSP’s software-
based filters are a lot more expensive
You might rightly expect a $40,000 CD player to sound its best right out of than standard chipsets. Likewise, optical
the box. Well, this one didn’t. Far from it. As shipped, the Wadia flagship’s transmitters and receivers are far more
sound was flat, boring, and dynamically stunted—a pale shadow of what costly than their electrical counterparts.
it was to become. The manufacturer and distributor suggested and All of which, combined with its no-
supplied the obvious fixes: audiophile-grade power cords and vibration- compromise build-quality, accounts for
isolating feet. These made a welcome but minor improvement. So I got the system’s staggering circa-$40,000
serious. price tag.
First, I swapped out the long fiber run between the 931 Controller But there’s more. Just as with separate
and the 921 DACs. The lengthy interconnects had been necessitated by components in a hi-fi system, the 270se/
Wadia’s directive to place the DACs next to their associated power amps. Series 9’s multi-box approach behooves
But moving the DACs beside the Controller made possible a dramatically owners to invest in the best possible
shorter fiber run, which in turn made an immediate sonic improvement. interconnects. In this case, a set of six is
Mind you, fiber is supposed to be immune to length-based sonic required: two between the transport and
deterioration, but my experience proved otherwise. the 931 (one clock, one data) and four
Next, I began fiddling with AC polarity and grounding. I have found that between the 931 and the 921 (one clock
many components are happier with reversed AC polarity and/or having and one data per channel). It turns out
their ground floated. Since there are four chassis in the system, each with that good optical cable isn’t cheap, as I
four possible polarity/ground combinations, performing this tweak was ruefully discovered during the course
mind-numbingly tedious. However, it was well worth the effort. Simply of optimizing the system (see sidebar).
floating the ground to the 931, for instance, had a remarkably positive I achieved excellent results using Aural
effect on the sound’s openness. Symphonics Optimism v2.2006, and I
Up to this point I had been using Wadia-supplied fiber, but at about wouldn’t dream of owning this system
this time Tommy Dzurak of Aural Symphonics opined that his Optimum without them. But the required half-
v2.2006 interconnects would be markedly superior to the Wadia links. He dozen adds a cool $6000 to the grand
sent me the required set of six and I promptly hooked them up. Initially, I total. That line item is entirely absent in
found them to be a step backwards; in particular, they were gumming up all-in-one players, and is radically less in
all the rhythms. However, fiber cables, like their electrical counterparts, a two-box coax rig (my reference coax
have a correct directional orientation. This, too, shouldn’t be so, but is. interconnect costs $85).
Aural Symphonics is fully aware of this phenomenon, yet doesn’t mark The question, of course, is how does
their cables for directionality. I therefore plunged into determining the Wadia’s extravagant, modern-convention-
proper orientation for each of the six cables. When that was done, the flouting architecture fare when it comes to
sound far exceeded what I had achieved with the Wadia fiber in virtually sound? After all, for all its skillful design
every parameter. and craftsmanship, a Patek Philippe is
A few final tweaks included: turning off the 270se’s “Resolution a less precise timekeeper than any $5
Enhancement” feature which, like sharpness and noise-reduction video watch from Target. Is it also true, then,
circuits, is actually a sonic detriment; placing Goldmund Cones under the that the Wadia’s commitment to a largely
transport in place of the ceramic feet supplied by the distributor; and bygone approach translates to inferior
bypassing my preamplifier in favor of connecting the DACs directly to the sonic performance? Or is Wadia simply
amps via long electrical interconnects. With these last tweaks, the sound the only company left willing to make
finally achieved a level of realism and liveliness—and more importantly, the considerable investment necessary to
the music crossed a threshold of engagement and lucidity—that had been bring difficult and costly but ultimately
previously unattainable. superior technology to market?
The moral of the story? Even expensive, scrupulously engineered To answer these questions, I listened
components require diligent effort on the part of the owner or dealer to to the Wadia first as a system, then piece
sound their best. Also, a manufacturer’s recommendations for achieving by piece. I found that its sound, like its
the best sound should not be considered sacrosanct. Likewise, theory is technology, strong-mindedly adheres to a
just that; there is no substitute for determining reality through actual particular philosophy. I can best describe
trial. As always, let your ears, rather than a theory or owner’s manual, be this philosophy—and its contrast to
the final judge. AT others—by referring to Issue 166, in
which Jonathan Valin eloquently describes
the dichotomy between two excellent
speakers. The MAGICO Mini, he states,
108 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Cutting Edge
are “a connoisseur’s speaker,” largely due
to its exemplary neutrality and resolution.
In contrast, the MBL 101 Es, though less
pure, are “excitement machines (that)
bring every kind of music to irrepressible
life.” The very same dichotomy applies to
the Wadia flagship and my reference CD
player. In this case, the Wadia wears the
connoisseur’s suit.
The 270se/Series 9 is supremely pure—
it lacks any trace of noise and is absolutely
neutral. It is also deeply resolving. Put
these together and you have a player that
extricates the smallest details, but never
spoils them through exaggeration or
edginess. Own the Wadia, and you will
Specs &
Pricing
Wadia
1556 Woodland Drive
Saline, Michigan 48176
(734) 786-9611
wadia.com
270se Transport
Outputs: ST glass fiber-optic digital, BNC
S/PDIF coaxial digital, AES/EBU digital
Dimensions: 17" x 7" x 16.5"
Weight: 52 lbs.
Price: $9950
Series 9 Decoding Computer
Inputs: ST glass fiber-optic digital (2), BNC
S/PDIF coaxial digital (2), AES/EBU digital (1),
TosLink digital (1)
Outputs: Balanced stereo analog, single-
ended stereo analog
Dimensions: 17" x 7.25" x 16.25" (931), 17"
x 4.1" x 13.4" (each 921)
Weight: 40 lbs. (931), 43 lbs. (each 921)
Price: $27,850
581 Integrated CD/SACD player
Outputs: Stereo analog balanced, stereo
analog single-ended
Dimensions: 17" x 7" x 16"
Weight: 48 lbs.
Price: $6950
ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Goldmund Studietto turntable; Graham 2.2
tonearm; Clearaudio Insider Gold cartridge;
Goldmund Mimesis 36 CD transport &
Mimesis 12++ DAC; Arcam FMJ DV-27A
DVD/DVD-A player; Goldmund Mimesis 22
and Aesthetix Calypso preamps; Goldmund
Mimesis 29.4 power amplifiers; Metaphor
1 & 2 speakers; B&W ASW850 subwoofer;
Empirical Design cables and power cords;
Goldmund cones; ASC Tube Traps
110 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
hear every previously cloaked reverb of
every vocal on every one of your pop
CDs. Soundstaging is another area of
great faithfulness to the source. The stage
is wide, yes, but also astonishingly deep. A
triangle being played behind an orchestra
emanates from waaay behind the speaker
plane. Then there are the rhythms, which
through the Wadia unfold at neither a
hurried nor a laggardly pace. Like Baby
Bear’s bed, chair, and porridge, they are
just right.
Though it may seem that I’ve showered
the Wadia with every possible accolade,
I still haven’t touched upon its most
distinctive (and addictive) characteristic:
its “planted” quality. The sound seems
to emanate not from wood or metal, but
from shear granite. This is undoubtedly
due to the Wadia’s massively overbuilt
construction, which appears to garner
the same benefits as do similarly wrought
speakers: a lack of any sonically extraneous
elements; bass with the whomp of a pile
driver (but perfectly defined); and tightly
focused imaging without a trace of the
peach fuzz haze we usually hear.
My reference front end is not up to the
Wadia’s standards in any of these areas.
The Wadia mercilessly exposes its aging
design and concomitant flaws. Yet the
reference is much more of an “excitement
machine.” Listening to it is a different
experience. The Wadia invites you to
approach it and appreciate its considerable
charms; the reference relaxes you, opens
your receptors, then mainlines the music
into your cortex. Personally, I prefer this
experience, but not everyone will.
How and why the reference does
what it does is difficult to say. There are
some obvious sonic factors. For instance,
the dynamic range of the reference is
markedly wider than the Wadia’s. As a
familiar illustration, listen to the first line
of Norah Jones’ “Don’t Know Why,”
from Come Away with Me [Blue Note]. On
the Wadia, she sings, “I waited ’til I saw
the sun.” On the reference it sounds more
like, “I WAIT-ed ’til I saw the sun” There
is a dynamic spike on the first syllable of
the second word that, while definitely
present through the Wadia, is far more
emphatic on the reference.
There are other, more subtle sonic
differences as well. Where the reference
fills empty space with something akin
to real air, the Wadia fills it with…
nothingness. Also, the Wadia, in
keeping with its generally more austere
presentation, is slightly less Technicolor
in its portrayal of timbres. These factors
help explain the reference’s greater vitality,
but not why it imparts a more relaxed
listening experience. Suffice it to say,
though, that both systems are extremely
engaging, the Wadia for its purity and
intricacy, the reference for its more direct
and visceral presentation.
Its most distinctive
(and addictive)
characteristic is its
“planted” quality
When I deconstructed the Wadia
assemblage and listened piece by piece,
I was surprised to discover that the
transport was a heavy contributor to
the system’s reduced energy level. I was
able to significantly amp up the vitality
quotient by substituting my Goldmund
Mimesis 36 reference deck for the 270se.
After doing so, for example, “Oh My
Soul” from Richard Thompson’s excellent
Front Parlour Ballads [Cooking Vinyl]
became significantly less restrained, with
greater separation of musical lines, more
tonal sonority, and, yes, more excitement.
Meanwhile, none of the Wadia transport’s
virtues were left behind. Now, the Mimesis
36 is one of the best CD transports ever
built, and when it was new fifteen years
ago, it cost more than the 270se does
today. Nonetheless, it is significant that
the 36 proved superior in every respect
despite having neither ClockLink nor a
TosLink to aid it. The 270se’s standing
suffered even further when I connected
both transports to my reference DAC.
Denied ClockLink and fiber, the Wadia
transport’s sound just fell apart; images
wandered and resolution deteriorated
markedly. Through the same DAC, the 36
had none of these problems.
I was curious how much of a difference
the fiber was making in all this, so I
compared fiber and coax links the only
way I could: between the 270se and the
931 Controller. The two proved to be fairly
close, but the fiber was clearly better. The

coax connection was thinner sounding,
and details were slightly etched, although
its presentation was also a bit airier and
more relaxed. Still, the fiber—at least
with the benefit of ClockLink—offered
cleaner rhythms, fuller timbres, better
imaging, and a more natural rendition of
details.
These results confirm the efficacy of
both ClockLink and fiber, which enable
the 270se to perform far better than it
otherwise would. Indeed, the 270se needs
these features. But the results also point
out that there is no substitute for getting
the bits right in the first place. With the
Mimesis 36 driving the Series 9, the
sound achieves a level of coherence and
drive that, when combined with all of the
Wadia’s previously noted virtues, is highly
compelling while still true to its intended
connoisseur character.
So is the 270se/Series 9 worth $40,000?
In purely sonic terms, my view is that
it is not. This is not because the Wadia
doesn’t sound wonderful, for in so many
ways it does. But thanks to the pioneering
efforts of companies like Wadia itself,
there are now several players in the $7000
range—including the T+A 1245R, the
Goldmund SR-DVD, and Wadia’s own
581—that offer virtually all of the 270se/
Series 9’s strengths (minus that inimitable
“planted” quality), plus some.
Yet in the Wadia’s case there are other
factors that may mitigate the extraordinary
investment it commands. The first is that,
assuming all your sources are digital, the
Wadia requires no intervening linestage
between it and the power amps. Quite
a few CD players on the market with an
extra input or two and a volume control
make the same claim. In practice, however,
most such players actually benefit from
linestage intervention, since their internal
output stages and volume controls can’t
match those of a good linestage. The
Series 9, though, is an entirely different
story. Its volume control is incredibly
sophisticated, and its output stage is
pure Class A, has plenty of power, and
is quiet as a tomb. Did I mention that it
sounds glorious? So this is the rare case
where, if all your sources are digital, you
can confidently spend more on the front
end, knowing you will gain some back by
foregoing a separate linestage.
The Cutting Edge
Wadia Resurgent!
Mistakes and misfortune can befall even the most decorated of people—
or companies. Consider the tumultuous history of Wadia. Twenty years
ago, the company was a founding member of a movement to transform
the nascent, sonically unpalatable compact-disc format into something
the high end could embrace. Along with its main rival, Theta Digital,
Wadia advanced a raft of innovations that made CD’s transformation
possible: outboard digital-to-analog convertors, glass-fiber connectivity,
proprietary clocking schemes and mechanical isolation to minimize jitter,
and software-based upsampling filters that blew away the crude chipsets
then available.
Wadia’s first products were intended merely as proofs of these
concepts—test beds for technology destined to be licensed to others. But
the components were so favorably received, the company was obliged to
manufacture them in earnest. By the early 1990s, Wadia had become a
firmly established builder of statement digital products.
Its first stumble occurred shortly thereafter. In an effort to build on its
initial success—and to deliver some profit to its venture capital investors—
Wadia undertook an aggressive expansion of product lines and research
initiatives. Hindsight now makes clear that these efforts were premature.
The new thrusts strained limited financial resources and nuked the balance
sheet. Likewise, the modest development team was forced to divert its
attention away from core products, causing a slowdown in new releases.
But these setbacks proved temporary. The company’s recovery began
when, in the mid-90s, the frustrated but dogged investors opted to let
Wadia’s founder and President, Don Moses, dedicate himself to technology
development. In came a new management team led by entrepreneur
Steven Jeffries. This division of labor ushered in Wadia’s second golden
age. Jeffries and crew upgraded the firm’s core digital technologies,
streamlined its organizational structure, simplified the product portfolio,
modernized manufacturing facilities, and invested in sales and marketing.
Wadia’s output, reputation, revenues, and profits flourished. Even today,
products from this era trade for robust premiums within high-end used-
equipment circles.
Buoyed by success, Wadia was once again anxious to expand. This time,
rather than overtaxing internal growth, it embarked on an acquisition
binge. To scale up manufacturing capacity and to broaden the product
line, Wadia in 1999 purchased UltraAnalog. The highly regarded maker
of digital chipsets also built high-quality CD players that were sold under
a variety of high-end brand names. At the same time, Wadia applied
resources to launching its PowerDAC product. And a year later, following
in the footsteps of companies like Meridian and Goldmund that had
transitioned from source-component to full-system providers, Wadia
completed its lineup by purchasing a speaker maker, Hales Design Group.
But integrating the newly acquired businesses proved just as arduous
and expensive as had organic growth. Management, development
resources, and money all became too thin-spread to handle the dispersed
facilities, multiple product initiatives, and disparate business models. Given
time, the skilled management team may well have righted the situation.
Unfortunately, the Asian stock market chose this moment to crash, casting
into a depression the region that accounted for nearly 50% of Wadia’s
revenue. Once more Wadia tumbled—this time, harder and farther.
By 2000, all but one of Wadia’s remaining investors had lost faith in
The Absolute Sound February 2007 113

Another mitigating factor is the
Wadia’s current and future capabilities.
The Series 9 is not presently limited to
CD source material; it will accommodate
any digital signal up to 96/24. And those
signals, no matter how humble (XM
radio, anyone?) receive the full Wadia
digital treatment. Further, the Series 9
was built with upgradeability in mind, and
Wadia promises support for any higher-
The Cutting Edge
resolution formats that may come along.
But I suspect all this value-oriented
talk is largely beside the point for those in
581 CD Player
the market for such a costly component.
For them, the Wadia is first and foremost
a product of superb craftsmanship,
extravagant design, flawless operation, and
performance that stands as a benchmark
I f Wadia’s flagship Series 9 is the
family patriarch, the new 581 CD/
SACD player is the renegade son. The
two bear obvious physical similarities and
both are built around massive, chiseled-
within its chosen philosophy. Just like a from-solid-aluminum chassis. Internally,
Patek Phillipe timepiece. too, it is clear that these components
were spawned from the same gene pool:

Wadia Resurgent! They share identical digital volume

circuitry and Class A output stages; they
use the same DACs, though the $27,850
the company and bailed out. The sole holdout, Shared Ventures, took Series 9, in its characteristic over-the-top
control of the company and moved it to Ann Arbor, Michigan. There manner, employs eight per channel while
resided Digital Imaging, whose research paralleled that of Wadia, but on the $6950 581 gets by with a mere two;
the video side. The idea was to create a technology partnership between and ClockLink jitter reduction is standard
the firms, one that would allow Wadia to re-emerge in accordance with on both. As for Wadia’s crown jewel, its
its original business plan as a licensor of advanced technology to other DigiMaster upsampling filter software,
manufacturers. This plan attracted both potential customers and new the 581 gets a less sophisticated but
interest from the venture community. But just as it about to launch, the conceptually identical version.
events of 9/11 sent financial markets cowering, and the plan unraveled There are virtually no operational
for lack of funding. differences, either. The 581 I tested was
For the next five years, a stripped-down Wadia—still oriented toward a pre-production prototype that exhibited
licensing technology—focused on R&D. Money for marketing and new a few tics, but Wadia is aware of these
product development was non-existent, but a recuperating Asia bought and promises they’ll be corrected in
enough existing models to maintain a pulse. From a U.S. perspective, production units. As expected, given the
Wadia simply disappeared. Competitors, of course, eagerly stepped into price spread, the 581 can’t quite match the
the breach. Finally, in 2005, the last investor wanted out. polished smoothness of the $9950 270se
Yet what could have been Wadia’s death knell proved instead to be its dedicated transport’s drawer. Nor would
resurrection. A small group of the company’s executives and employees anyone mistake the more affordable
decided that they themselves would take ownership. In January of 2006, machine’s remote for the flagship’s brick-
the buyout was completed. John Schaffer, who had been the firm’s Vice like hunk. But the user interfaces are
President of Sales and Marketing, became President. Having witnessed past identical, and the remotes are functionally
problems firsthand, Schaffer decided to play strictly to Wadia’s strengths interchangeable right down to the handy
of sophisticated digital processing and high-end products incorporating reverse-polarity button.
that technology. Yet despite all these physical,
Schaffer and his team have their work cut out for them; the digital operational, and topological similarities,
landscape has altered significantly during the company’s half-decade the Series 9 and 581 offer radically
of limbo. But Wadia is taking bold steps to re-establish its eminence. different presentations of music. To be
They have introduced a flagship $40,000 digital front end, the sure, the 581 retains many of the Series
270se transport and Series 9 DAC/digital preamplifier (see review). 9’s qualities. Both share a marvelously
Meanwhile, the just-released 581 CD/SACD player leverages much of the unhurried sense of “inevitable” pace, as
Series 9’s technology within a more form-and-price-friendly package. well as resolution not only of primary
Both units encompass significant upgrades over Wadia’s past products, details, but of subtle events taking place
vividly illustrating that even while the company was silent running, its in the deep background. And both
commitment and creativity never abated. illuminate the rear of the soundstage like
The high end is a decidedly crowded place. But it will always accom- nothing else. But this is where the two
modate firms with a passion to explore the limits of audio technology and diverge, for the Series 9 is all about purity,
which bring the fruits of those labors to products both extreme refinement, and control. It presents music
and moderate. Wadia began as a pioneer, and despite nearly unfathomable with modest scale and dynamics in order
setbacks, it never lost its pioneering spirit. Let us, therefore, be to ensure that nothing gets out of hand.
grateful for Wadia’s return to the fold, and hopeful that this resurgence Within these self-imposed bounds, it is
proves permanent. AT exquisitely intricate.
In contrast, the 581’s sound is big and

The Absolute Sound February 2007 115

The Cutting Edge
boisterous, with a penchant for grand
gestures—even if that means things
occasionally become a tad unruly. Because
this player takes itself less seriously, it
possesses a musical ease that the Series
9 lacks. All of which translates to very
different listening experiences. The Series
9 is rather shy about its charms, and
requires the listener to make the initial
approach. The 581, on the other hand,
grabs you immediately, effortlessly, and
relentlessly. Overall, it bears a far closer
resemblance to my reference Goldmund
transport and DAC than to its own elder.
These distinctions were made plain
when I listened to my favorite choral
piece, the Duruflé Requiem [Telarc], on
all three front ends. The recording isn’t
bad—choruses are notoriously difficult
to capture with anything approaching
realistic scale and sonority—and there is
no beating Robert Shaw and the Atlanta
Chorus’ complete mastery of the form.
Through the Series 9, every line of the
“Kyrie” was perfectly delineated, as was
every orchestral and vocal nuance. The
piece was a cerebral feast. However, when
116 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
I listened to the same track through my
reference player, I found that I didn’t
care about any of that. Instead, I was
completely taken over by the movement’s
sublime beauty. I sat riveted, afraid even
to swallow lest I spoil the moment.
The 581, though, gave a performance
I’ll not soon forget. The nuance of the
Series 9 was fully intact, but along with
it came the full emotional wallop the
reference had delivered, and even more so.
As the movement progressed, it became
apparent that the 581’s dynamic range is
so broad, it makes my reference—which
I’d thought irreproachable in this area—
sound almost compressed in comparison.
Likewise, the 581 is so open, the
reference—which isn’t remotely closed-
in—sounds nearly cloudy. Consequently,
when the final orchestral and choral lines
swelled and dovetailed beyond anything
I’d imaged possible, the effect was
literally breathtaking. We are all aware that
CDs theoretically possess tremendous
dynamic range, but we hardly ever hear
it. Listening to the 581’s phenomenal
dynamics, I felt for the first time that the
format’s promise was fulfilled.
At this point, I was running the 581
and all other sources through my linestage
to facilitate comparisons. In such a
configuration, the 581 has some sonic
limitations worth noting. Compared to
both the reference and the Series 9, the
581’s imaging is more approximate, and its
soundstage narrower. It also has a distinct
“white” bias to its tonal coloration; there
is not quite enough oomph and warmth
at the low end to balance the ultra-clear
top. The sound is in no way thin, but
pianos, for instance, have less weight
than they might have, and orchestras do
not sound quite as ravishing. The 581
can also get a little ragged when, say, a
full-throated Anita Baker cuts loose. So
although the 581 is a near dead-ringer for
my reference player, and though both get
the music right, in a direct comparison
the reference sounds more realistic and is
smoother and easier to listen to.
However, all of my quibbles with the
581 vanish when it is connected directly to
power amps. Like the Series 9, and unlike
the myriad CD players that support but
fail to benefit from such an arrangement,
the 581 incorporates an absolutely superb
output stage and a completely benign
The Cutting Edge

This player is happiest when

there is no linestage standing
between it and a good amp
digital volume control. This player is happiest when there is no linestage standing
between it and a good amp. The sound becomes far more natural and pure, with
greater air and imaging authority. The whitish cast, too, is gone, replaced by warmer,
more true-to-life colors. And the narrowish soundstage now stretches comfortably
across the room. In this configuration, the 581 rivals any CD player I have heard.
The 581 also plays SACDs. Based on serial disappointments, I have come to expect
multi-format players to founder with one medium or another. In particular, many
SACD players fail to sound as good as a top-notch CD player. The 581 is itself a top-
notch CD player, so it has its work cut out for it if SACDs are to sound even better.
But they do. Listening, for example, to the Telarc hybrid disc of Vaughan Williams’
Sea Symphony, the SACD layer was quieter, more expressive, and lovelier than the CD
layer, though it did have a slightly more distant perspective. And when things got
loud and complex, nothing collapsed or broke up as CDs are wont to do. If you are
collecting discs in this format, the 581 is one of the few players I’ve heard that will do
them justice, albeit in two channels only.
In sum, Wadia’s new 581 is a landmark release. It incorporates the strengths of the
company’s most sophisticated designs, but combines them with a newfound sense of
musical freedom. The result is irresistibly compelling, especially if you use the 581 as
its own linestage and hook it directly to a power amp. Need another digital source?
Consider the 581i ($8450), which is identical to the 581 but offers four digital inputs in
four formats (glass fiber, BNC coax, TosLink, and AES/EBU), as well as a digital out.
Need some analog inputs, too? Well, you’re stuck buying a linestage. Even then, the 581
richly deserves a serious audition. TAS
118 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Cutting Edge
An open challenge
to the high-end
status quo Krell LAT-1000
Loudspeaker
Anthony H. Cordesman

the Krell LAT-1000 is Dan D’Agostino’s effort to bring the same kind
of no-holds barred approach to speaker design that he has brought to his Evolution
Series electronics. He led the design team and voiced the speaker using Evolution gear—
some of the best equipment around—and though the LAT-1000 is by no means the
most expensive speaker ever made, at $55,000 it is costly enough to put it firmly in the
“superb or failure” category of high-end products.
Happily, the speaker does, indeed, come close to being superb. With the right
amplification and setup, it can be one of the most musically realistic speakers around.
However, that very musical realism makes the LAT-1000 highly controversial in terms of
accuracy in frequency response and timbre. It is deliberately voiced very differently from
most speakers on the market, and, as a result, raises a question that deserves far more
attention in the high end: Is it the purpose of the high end to create the most technically
accurate component in each link of the audio chain, or to create the most realistic and
enjoyable illusion of listening to live music?
As you might expect for the price, the LAT-1000 is a physically imposing speaker. Its
cabinet, made of incredibly solid extruded aluminum, weighs 250 pounds, which is a
lot for an enclosure with a relatively modest size of 54.6" high by 14.7" wide by 14.7"
deep. Just watching it being carried up my front stairs made my back ache in sympathy.
In practice, however, the LAT-1000 slides easily enough on a carpet to allow one person
to experiment with different room placements and setups.
You will have to log on to the Krell Web site and download the manual to get a clear
picture of just how complex the enclosure and crossover design are; this is not a simple
box, but a three-way dynamic speaker design pushed to the state of the art. A special
aluminum sub-enclosure houses the midrange and tweeter, isolating them from the main
cabinet; the drivers include three 8" custom-made aluminum-cone woofers, two 5.25"
magnesium-cone midrange drivers, and a 1" neodymium tweeter. The crossovers are
divided among three different circuit assemblies—one each for the woofer, midrange,
and tweeter networks, and all using 4-ounce copper traces, WIMA capacitors, and air-
core inductors.
The LAT-1000 is not designed to be all things to all amplifiers. It has a nominal
impedance of 3-4 ohms, but this includes areas between 1kHz and 2kHz that drop to
nearly 2 ohms, and major peaks below 50Hz that rise well above 30 ohms. Its complex
mix of second- and third-order crossovers also seem to put more strain than usual on
an amplifier.
As might be expected, the LAT-1000 worked perfectly with Krell’s new Evolution
series electronics, and equally well with my high-power, high-current Pass X600.5s. It did
not, however, work well with solid-state amplifiers that do not have high-current as well
as high-wattage capability or have trouble with very low or complex loads. Not only do
dynamics become restricted, but I could hear small changes in imaging and coherence.
Low-to-medium-power tube amplifiers are simply out. They can’t properly drive this

120 February 2007 The Absolute Sound

The Cutting Edge
speaker and can’t control its bass with the
damping needed to show just how tight
and accurate it can be. I can’t tell you
how well it will work with more modern
high-power tube amplifiers, having none
on hand, though my experience
indicates that lots of clean
power solves most tube-amp
drive problems.
Speaker cables can also
be an issue. My Kimber,
Discovery, and Straightwire
cables worked fine, but I’d
advise against speaker cables
with load networks or with
minimum impedance and
capacitance, unless you are willing
to sacrifice microdynamics and
a bit of detail to make the load
easier on the amplifier. One other
point in passing: The LAT-1000s
have no provisions for bi-amping
or bi-wiring, and no frequency
adjustments. The speakers are
obviously not designed for
tweaking.
The Krell LAT-1000s have an
unusual frequency-response curve.
The manufacturer’s specifications
for their nearfield response shows
a -5dB down point of 30Hz in the
free field, but there is a +2dB peak
around 60Hz, a slow drop of about
-5dB from 130Hz to 800Hz, and then
a very gentle drop of about 2–3dB
to 20kHz. I’ll touch upon the sonic
impact of this frequency response in
a moment, but—like all speakers with
truly deep bass—the LAT-1000s need a
bit of attention to room boundaries, and
getting this right is slightly more difficult
than usual.
The Krell rep (who came with the
speakers) did very well simply placing the
LAT-1000s in my usual room location.
To get the very best results, however, I
needed to find the rear-of-the-speaker-
to-rear-wall distance that provided just
a touch of bass reinforcement in the
30–40Hz range, without reinforcing
the peak around 60Hz. I got the proper
result in a few hours listening by ear, and
in about an hour using a one-third-octave
frequency-response meter. (Let me stress,
that I’d recommend such adjustment for
virtually any serious monitor. You don’t
122 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
get accurate deep bass in real-world
listening rooms unless you are willing to
work for it.)
Krell did not provide vertical and
horizontal dispersion data for the
LAT-1000, but it became obvious
that this speaker sounds best with
the height of its tweeter nearly
at ear level, far enough from the
side walls to limit reflected energy
to reasonable levels, and with
its “feet” adjusted to the angle
recommended in its instruction
manual. It is also far more coherent,
and has far better imaging stability,
at a reasonable listening distance
(10 feet or more).
Finally, the speaker “grille”
consists of thick rubber strands.
These are very attractive but vibrate
constantly when the speaker is
playing loud, and have some impact
on the smoothness and dispersion of
the upper octaves. You might consider
removing them. The differences may
be slight, but they’re real.
Though you will get very musical
sound out of this speaker even with
minimal setup, if you give setup the
right attention, the LAT-1000 is one
of the few speakers that does come
close to reproducing the illusion of live
music. Transparency, excellent small-
and large-scale dynamics, deep bass, and
smooth, extended frequency response
over most of the spectrum are sound
qualities you can take for granted, but
what really makes the LAT-1000 sound
different is its unique timbre. Like Sonus
Faber’s and Wilson’s, Krell’s speakers are
voiced more to sound like music than to
meet some laboratory standard.
As I have explained earlier, the
manufacturer’s frequency curve does not
claim flat response and—within the severe
limits of home measurement—
the curve Krell specified is the
frequency response I got and
heard. This means the overall
response of the LAT-1000 is
“warm” by the standards of most
of today’s speakers. It definitely has
been tuned to give more of the kind of
deep-bass power you hear in a concert
hall or club than to win a race for flat
response. You also don’t get the high
The Cutting Edge
levels of dispersed treble energy you
hear in many competing speakers, and
the midrange does not have the punch
and detail of speakers that have flatter
frequency-response curves.
I believe, however, that Krell is right
and the other designs are musically wrong.
As someone who travels enough to hear
concert halls and live performances all over
the world, my interest lies in reproducing
the live listening experience and not
what has become an obsessive interest in
upper-octave detail at the cost of anything
approaching musical realism. I want
the timbre I hear live, not the frequency
response that measures well in a lab.
This may sound strange coming
from a reviewer who uses TAD-1 and
Thiel 7.2 speakers as references. Both
measure flat and both are capable of
extraordinary detail. A reviewer, however,
needs reference equipment that can act
as a reference and not
simply provide the This speaker
most musical sound. provides real
Moreover, speaker
and listening-position musical pleasure
layout and the choice with virtually every
of warm electronics
and/or warm eq can
decent recording
provide the same musical realism as
tuning the speaker.
These choices aren’t necessary with the
Krell LAT-1000. The low midrange and
upper bass have the warmth they should.
Strings and brass do not glare or harden;
flute sounds the way it does live; a grand
piano can fill the room without suddenly
changing its timbre on high notes and
losing much of its warmth; female voice
becomes balanced and aspirants natural.
The character of individual instruments
becomes much more apparent. In
short, the LAT-1000 offers audiophiles
something they really need if they listen
to live acoustic music
Other audiophiles may have a very
different reaction. If you don’t listen to
a lot of live acoustic music you are going
to be conditioned to listen for more
upper-midrange energy and more upper-
octave “air” than you will hear with these
speakers. This is particularly true of high-
enders who have grown up listening to
CD, without having had the analog LP
experience and without spending a great
124 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
deal of time listening to live, unamplified
acoustic music. Most CDs are mixed in
ways that provide far more close-miked
upper-octave information than you are
ever going to hear in a live performance.
A lot of jazz recordings on CD suffer
from the same problem. I rarely hear a
CD that has the same bass content as
a club, even though most clubs do use
sound reinforcement systems.
A speaker like the LAT-1000 not only
brings back the music in music, it gets
the best out of a far wider range of CDs,
DVDs, or SACDs than a speaker that
exaggerates the upper octaves. I also found
it to be as realistic with my older LPs as
with modern, close-miked, complex-
mixdown CDs. Having grown up listening
to Reiner in the old Orchestra Hall the
Chicago Symphony used in the 1950s, I
found the sound of RCA Red Seals do a
good job of getting the timbre right from
Row D backwards. After
all, most classic LPs
were mastered using
speakers with this kind
of timbre—not today’s
brighter-sounding
designs.
I did find the deep
bass voicing of the LAT-1000 somewhat
controversial. The speaker does raise the
energy level of the deep bass without
providing the kind of added energy
below 40Hz that some audiophiles who
use subwoofers have gotten used to. It
also requires careful placement. As I
already noted, you don’t want to reinforce
standing wave energy in 50–60Hz
region, and you do want a bit of room
reinforcement below it.
But, this kind of response does have
musical virtues with the right room setup.
Go out to any good orchestral hall or
decent acoustic jazz environment and
listen carefully to the bass energy you
actually hear live. Forget about reference
recordings, and really listen. Audiophiles
who obsess over bass below 45Hz miss
the point. Relatively little music takes
you down to the true acoustic depths.
Almost all music depends for much of
its aesthetic impact on the bass between
45Hz and 100Hz, and far too many
systems now lack natural musical energy
below 60–70Hz.

For organ, electronic music, and the
odd note or passage below 40Hz, there
are bigger speakers that do provide more
energy and more realistic sound at the true
bottom of the bass. I suspect, however,
that with most such music you’ll find the
LAT-1000s sound remarkably natural.
They may not be the ultimate speaker if
your goal in life is to spend a few minutes
of listening to low-frequency test tones,
but they’re great for hours of actual
listening.
One other caution. The LAT-1000
is scarcely a mini-monitor and does
not provide the same kind of driver
integration and coherence at close
listening distances that you get with a full-
range ribbon, a full-range electrostatic, or
a dynamic speaker’s integrated tweeter
and mid/bass drivers. You do need to
give the LAT-1000s space: a big listening
room and enough distance between
Specs &
Pricing
Krell Industries, Inc.
45 Connair Road
Orange, Connecticut 06477
(203) 799-9954
krellonline.com
Type: Three-way floorstanding bass-reflex
loudspeaker
Driver complement: One 1" tweeter; two
5.75" midrange; three 8" carbon-fiber
woofers
Frequency response: 28Hz–30kHz
Sensitivity: 89dB
Nominal impedance: 3 ohms
Recommended amplifier power: 200W or
greater
Dimensions: 14.7" x 54.6" x 14.7"
Weight: 250 lbs.
Price: $55,000
Associated Equipment
VPI TNT HX-X turntable and HWJr 12.5
tonearm; Van den Hul Black Beauty, Sumiko
Celebration and Koetsu Onyx Cartridges;
McIntosh MVP-861 SACD/DVD-A/DVD
player; PS Audio Lambda CD transport
(modified); Tact 2.2X digital preamp-room
correction- equalizer-D/A converter; Pass
Xono phonostage; Pass X0.2 linestage;
Pass X600A power amplifiers; TAD Model
1 and Thiel 7.2 loudspeakers; Kimber
Select, Transparent Audio Reference XL,
and Wireworld Super Eclipse and Eclipse
interconnects and digital cables
The Cutting Edge
the listening position and speakers to
allow the drivers to blend seamlessly.
I’d also adjust the space between them
so a naturally miked solo grand piano
recording, or string quartet, have natural
width, image size, and depth.
With this kind of set up, the LAT-
1000s become truly musical and “alive.”
You get the kind of Row F sound that
anyone who loves live performances
almost inevitably prefers to what you
hear sitting in the front rows. Jazz, vocals,
and solo instruments come together with
equal realism and warmth.
Like every speaker in this price range,
you would be insane not to listen and
buy on the basis of your own taste and
judgment. You, and many of my fellow
reviewers, may well not agree with me that
the high end has tended to drift away from
musical realism and become obsessed with
upper-octave detail and energy. I would,
however, make it a real point to listen to
the LAT-1000s simply to hear one of the
speakers that dares to be different. I would
do so after listening to live acoustic music
rather than “hi-fi.”
This speaker provides real musical
pleasure and does so with virtually every
decent recording, not just a few that suit
its timbre. I believe it shows it’s time we
went back to creating high-end systems
based on core values: Reproducing the
actual sound of music and not seeking
maximum information at the cost of
music’s soul. TAS
Manufacturer Comment
NuForce S-9 Loudspeaker
The design goal of the S-9 was for
it to be one of the most faithful
reproducers of live music, and
we are very glad to have Robert
Greene’s recognition. We would like
to take this opportunity to mention
the contribution of SP Technology
Loudspeakers as the primary designer
and collaborator of the NuForce
S-9 speaker project. Also worth
pointing out is that the S-9 comes
standard with an external crossover.
Therefore, further enhancements,
such as a passive crossover upgrade
or converting to an active crossover,
can be done with ease. Jason Lim
The Absolute Sound February 2007 127

Charles Tolliver:
With Love.
Charles Tolliver and Michael
Cuscuna, producers.
Blue Note 69315.
For those who weren’t already acquainted
with his quirky, brilliant big-band record-
ings from the 70s on his own Strata-East
label, the re-emergence of trumpeter-
bandleader Charles Tolliver on the New
York scene in recent years has been a
revelation for jazz fans. Here is a working
big band that expertly straddles the great
divide between the intelligent, unerring,
well-oiled-machine aesthetic of the Buddy
Rich or Maynard Ferguson aggregations
and the ragged-around-the-edges, free-
wheeling aesthetic of the Sun Ra Arkestra
or Cecil Taylor Orchestra. That is to say,
Tolliver makes judicious use of dissonance
and edgy solos, wedding them with preci-
sion hits and tightly synchronized section
playing. He strikes this tight/loose bal-
ance throughout his audacious and always
stimulating Blue Note debut as a leader,
seamlessly melding hard bop and avant-
garde while still holding the reigns on his
powerhouse large ensemble.
Tolliver’s writing tends to be busy,
marked by lots of harmonic movement
and intricate interplay between the
trumpets and trombones (left speaker)
and saxes (right speaker). And the solo
sections groove just enough to allow
for some unrestrained blowing by a
crew of killer soloists, including pianists
Stanley Cowell and Robert Glasper, alto
saxophonists Craig Handy and Todd
Bashore, baritone saxophonist Howard
Johnson, and the great Trane-inspired
tenor saxophonist Billy Harper.
The rambunctious opener, “Rejoicin’,”
is a perfect distillation of this potent
group’s appeal. Tolliver and company
Music Sonics Extraordinary
come out of the gate swinging hard in 3/4
time, fueled by drummer Victor Lewis’
muscular bashing and sly syncopation.
The separate horn sections engage in a
fierce three-way conversation from the
outset, swirling around Lewis’ bombastic
pulse like separate swarms of bees circling
the hive. Tolliver’s trumpet solo here is
bristling with energy, almost sounding
distorted through the sheer force of his
urgent blowing. That same bursting-at-
the-seams energy can be felt on “Right
Now” (which he originally recorded 40
years ago on a Jackie McLean Blue Note
date) and on the adrenalized closer “Hit
The Spot,” featuring an incendiary alto
sax solo by Handy.
Tolliver’s inventive take on Thelonious
Monk’s “’Round Midnight” includes some
dramatic mid-song shifting, whereby the
trumpeter blows blistering, white-hot
lines over an off-to-the-races uptempo
section. His stirring “Mournin’ Variations”
(originally recorded on Tolliver’s 1975
album, Impact) opens with an intriguing,
chamber-like intro for woodwind quartet
before resolving to a dynamic modal
section that turns Billy Harper loose on
a probing tenor solo. Tolliver adds fuel to
the fire with a stinging post-bop trumpet
solo of his own that is, like the recording
itself, unconventional, stimulating, and
always swinging. Bill Milkowski
Further Listening: Charles Tolliver:
Impact; Andrew Hill: A Beautiful Day
Excellent Good
Music
Jazz
Steve Swallow
with Robert
Creeley: So There.
Swallow, producer.
ECM/Xtra/Watt 7932.
On his fourth release in six years, jazz
bassist Steve Swallow teams up with
poet Robert Creeley (who is reported to
have written to the music of jazz pianist
Bud Powell), pianist Steve Kuhn, and the
Cikada Quartet for a set of evocative
and introspective pieces that stand as a
heartfelt homage to Creeley, who died in
2005, shortly before the completion of
this project.
Indeed, Creeley’s reflective readings
are the heart of this work in which words
and music play against one another. In an
effort to transcend the music-and-poetry
genre, Swallow has said that he tried to
Fair Poor
The Absolute Sound February 2007 131
Jazz
“get inside Bob’s breathing as he spoke
the lines.” The resulting warmth and
intimacy reveal that Swallow has admirably
succeeded. Over the course of 18 tracks,
Creeley muses on life’s beauty and frailty
while Swallow and company provide a soft
bed of sparsely arranged sound, buoyed by
gorgeous string-quartet charts and melodic
bass lines. Throughout, Kuhn and Swallow
produce a wide range of sounds and styles
that perfectly compliment Creeley’s gentle
ruminations.
There is a welcoming cozy, quality
about the recording. For instance,
“Return,” a poem about the quality of
quiet, is a distillation of every peaceful
Sunday afternoon you ever spent curled
up with a good book or soothing cup of
tea. That Swallow and his cohorts capture
that feeling without the slightest hint of
sappiness is a testament to their artistic
talents. At times, as on the playful bass-
and-piano duet “Miles,” Kuhn sounds like
Vince Guaraldi on his best Charlie Brown
recordings, brimming with a youthful
exuberance that belies the maturity of
the music.
Sonically, Swallow has opted for a
somewhat narrow soundstage that still
leaves plenty of room for Creeley’s
poems to breath, yet despite these slight
constraints, this is one of Swallow and
Kuhn’s finest performances and sets
the benchmark for similar projects.
Greg Cahill
Further Listening: Steve Swallow/
Ohad Talmore Sextet: L’Histore Du
Clochard: The Bum’s Tale; Courage:
The Way Out is Via the Door
Exploding Star
Orchestra: We Are
All From Somewhere Else.
Rob Mazurek and John McEntire,
producers. Thrill Jockey 181.
In the decade since he teamed with drum-
mer Chad Taylor in the Chicago Un-
derground Duo (which morphed into a
quartet and an orchestra), Rob Mazurek
has taken his cornet and electronics ever
deeper into interstellar regions where
composition and improvisation fold back
upon each other in a time warp that col-
Music Sonics Extraordinary
132 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
lapses the decades that ostensibly separate
the late 1960s from the early 21st century.
Originally organized for a Millennium
Park concert for the Chicago Cultural
Center and the Jazz Institute, Exploding
Star Orchestra becames the audio vehicle
for Mazurek’s fanciful multimedia sci-fi
narrative involving supernovas, electric
eels, and the cosmic travels and transfigu-
rations of a sting ray.
The late Sun Ra might have recognized
reflections of his own intergalactic
visions, as well as echoes of his Arkestra’s
“solar-myth approach” in the sound
of the ESO. Mazurek tapped Chicago’s
free-jazz, electronic music, and post-
rock scenes for this recording’s 14-piece
ensemble (notably Nicole Mitchell,
flutes/voice; Jeb Bishop, trombone;
Corey Wilkes, flugelhorn; Josh Berman,
cornet; Jeff Parker, guitar; and John
McEntire, marimba/tubular bells, plus
reeds, bass, drums, synths, vibes, and
percussion). Snaking, chugging, roaring,
and drifting through the seamless three-
section suite—from the collectively
improvised “Psycho-Tropic Electric
Eel Dream” (inspired by Mazurek’s
recordings of electric eels) through Jim
Baker’s pretty piano feature “Black Sun”
and into the diverse “Cosmic Tomes for
Sleep Walking Lover”—the orchestra
triumphantly traverses pathways cleared
by the Art Ensemble of Chicago, Frank
Zappa, Soft Machine, and Philip Glass on
the way down uncharted wormholes of
its own devising.
The shifting emphases, from sections to
solos, and from reeds to brass to keyboards
to percussion to lead guitar, make for
pleasantly disorienting headphone
listening. But through speakers, despite
a wide soundstage, the sonics sometimes
blur into a molten mass that has more
Excellent Good
momentum and emotional force than fine
detail, which doesn’t undercut the band’s
current status as the most exciting hybrid
orchestra in the universe as we know it.
Derk Richardson
Further Listening: Chicago
Underground Orchestra: Playground;
Frank Zappa: The Yellow Shark
Joe Zawinul: Brown
Street.
Zawinul and Joachim Becker,
producers. Heads Up 3121 (two CDs).
A co-founder of Weather Report, the
premier fusion band of the 70s, Joe
Zawinul is now celebrating his 20th year
as leader of the Zawinul Syndicate. But
for this ambitious two-disc set, recorded
live in October 2005 at his Birdland
club in Vienna with the WDR Big
Band Koln, the Austrian-born maestro
revisted pieces from his past. With a core
group consisting of Syndicate drummer
Nathaniel Townsley, former Weather
Report and Syndicate bassist Victor
Bailey, and former Weather Reporter
Alex Acuna on percussion, these newly
expanded renditions of familiar Zawinul
compositions from his Weather Report
years take on a decidedly new flavor while
losing none of the intense momentum
and drive that were signatures of that
swaggering fusion juggernaut.
And at age 74, Joe has not lost a step.
He still burns with unparalleled speed,
dexterity, and creativity as a synth soloist,
as heard here on blistering tracks like the
aptly-titled “Fast City” (from 1980’s Night
Passage), frantic “Badia/Boogie Woogie
Waltz” medley (which first appeared
on 1978’s Grammy Award-winning live
album 8:30), and “March of the Lost
Fair Poor
Jazz
Children” (from 1988’s The Immigrants).
And equipped with new digital synths
and sampling technology that didn’t exist
during Weather Report’s heyday, Zawinul
is also able to conjure new and better
sounds, heard to particularly good effect
on a moving rendition of “A Remark
You Made” (from 1977’s Heavy Weather),
the triumphant shuffle-swing flag-waver
“Night Passage,” and on the ambient
intro to “Procession” (title track from
Weather Report’s 1983 album).
Bailey provides a remarkably unerring
time feel and eminently funky bottom
throughout the proceedings. And
Townsley, a whirlwind on the kit, supplies
the kind of muscular, quick-handed,
crisply interactive groove playing that
Zawinul adamantly requires of drummers.
The 15-piece WDR Big Band Koln, a
marvelous outfit that has collaborated on
several occasions with other prominent
musicians, lends a majestic lift to the
compositions, which were originally
134 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
arranged on banks of keyboards but
conceptualized in an Ellingtonian fashion
by Zawinul. All the music on this ambitious
collaboration was adapted and arranged
by Vince Mendoza, with the exception
of “Procession.” Outstanding soloists
from the ranks of the big band include
alto saxophonist Karolina Strassmayer,
who digs into the heavy groove of “Black
Market” with uncommon post-bop
authority and wails with funky abandon
on “March of the Lost Children,” and
New Yorker John Marshall, who offers
some beautifully lyrical trumpet work on
the anthemic “In A Silent Way.”
Kudos to WDR recording engineer Muhal Richard
Gerald Ernst for capturing the present Abrams, George
drum sound heard throughout, as the Lewis, Roscoe Mitchell:
resonant boom of the kick drum and Streaming.
crisp slam of the snare are essential to Abrams, Lewis, Mitchell, producers;
propelling the kinetic music. Often in recorded by Tom Hamilton and Rich
concert, and certainly in large ensemble Lamb. Pi 122.
situations, the drums tend to get buried “If people could fall back on the
in the mix. But here, the intensity of fundamental primordial aspects of their
Townsley’s precision playing is preserved own human nature,” George Lewis said
in tact. BM in a recent interview, “it would be a lot
Further Listening: Zawinul easier for them to understand and to hear
Syndicate: Vienna Nights; Scott this music.” Indeed, the “letting go” of
Kinsey: Kinesthetics prejudices about how sound “should”
be organized to qualify as “music” is
essential for entry into, and pleasurable
partaking of, the “dissonant” conundrums
of free jazz. But it’s abundantly evident
throughout this outlandishly ingenious
trio session that Lewis (trombone and
laptop), Muhal Richard Abrams (piano
and percussion), and Roscoe Mitchell
(saxophones and percussion) rely on
more than “primordial” instinct to remain
compassionately engaged and responsive.
Representing three different genera-
tions of the jazz avant-garde, Abrams,
now 75, Mitchell, 66, and Lewis, 53, are
intimately familiar with one another’s
musical vocabularies and temperaments,
and possess deep knowledge of musical
and cultural history. That gives them a leg
up on those who depend on raw intuition
and unfiltered reactivity.
What you hear in the four extended
tracks of Streaming—beneath the dense
tonal clusters, brassy splatters, reedy
bleats, hop-scotching and pinnacle-
conquering runs, and shape-shifting
electronic beds—is the pregnant silence
of listening. These men are masters not
only of their instruments and individual
lexicons of extended techniques, but of
in-the-moment awareness of the aural
stimuli that comes at them in the trio
and duo settings. They hear, process,
and respond so instantaneously that even
the most fractured, superficially chaotic
jumble of sound has a wondrously
natural flow and spaciousness. The latter
quality is amplified by exceptional sonics
that capture a realistic spectrum, from
the deepest rumble of bass piano keys to
crystalline tinkling of bells.
It all blows up what could have been
aural equivalents of Jackson Pollock- and
Mark Rothko–like canvasses into post-
Calder mobiles, held together not by wire,
but by mutual respect and affirmation.
DR
Further Listening: Muhal Richard
Abrams: Spihumonesty; George
Lewis: Conversations
SACD
Hank Jones,
Christian McBride,
Jimmy Cobb: West of 5th.
David Chesky and Eleana Steinberg-
Tee, producers. Hybrid stereo.
Chesky 313.
Nicholas Payton,
Bob Belden,
Sam Yahel, John Hart, Billy
Drummond: Mysterious
Shorter.
Bob Belden and David Chesky,
producers. Hybrid stereo. Chesky
321.
It’s formulaic, but what a formula! Gather
together world-class jazz players and first-
rate tunes built around a solid theme, add
an expert production team, and wait for
the results. And the latter are exceptional
on a pair of new discs from the Chesky
label’s New York Sessions series.
At 88, veteran jazz pianist Hank Jones
plays those 88s like no one’s business,
tapping into an endless fount of ideas.
Clarinetist Eddie Daniels once remarked
that Jones “is the synthesis of jazz piano
from stride to bebop.” Well said. A
convivial session of standards, his West
of 5th aptly harkens back to the golden-
era New York clubs located between 5th
and 7th Avenues that spawned the bebop
revolution.
Jones, who is joined here by former
Miles Davis drummer Jimmy Cobb and
young-lion bassist Christian McBride,
The Absolute Sound February 2007 135
Jazz
has a buoyant touch that suits these
tunes, which range from an eight-minute
rendition of the spry Ogden Nash/Kurt
Weill showtune “Speak Low” to Thad
Jones’ tender ballad “A Child is Born.”
And the blues is never far away. Wes
Montgomery’s light-hearted romp “Mr.
Walker” gets an airy Latin-tinged workout
as Jones lays down long lyrical lines in a
bluesy chat with his partners. Jones digs
even deeper to unleash brilliant soul-
inflected blues chops on Charlie Parker’s
“Billie’s Bounce,” which also showcases
Cobbs’ deft percussion skills.
But it’s the intimate ballads—especially
Billy Strayhorn’s “Lotus Blossom,” Victor
Young’s “Stella By Starlight,” and Cobbs’
own “Eleanor”—that really stand out,
thanks to the warmth of these recordings.
The instrumentation caresses the listener;
you’d be hard-pressed to find a recording
of light brushes and cymbals that possesses
more realism.
Meanwhile, the edgier sensibilities and
adventurous musical vision of tenor and
soprano saxophonist Wayne Shorter—
the former Miles Davis sideman and
longtime Weather Report member—
fuels Mysterious Shorter. This set of eight
Shorter compositions features tracks
culled from the reedman’s mid-60s and
early 70s recordings, the exception being
“Masquelero” from Miles Davis’ Sorcerer.
The tunes provide the framework for a
Music Sonics Extraordinary
136 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
red-hot band led by tenor and soprano
saxophonist Bob Belden, who during
the past 15 years has released a series of
similar jazz recordings that re-imagine the
works of everyone from the Beatles to
Rachmaninoff, Puccini to Prince.
However, this is the first time Belden
has set his sights on a jazz composer, and
is joined by trumpet star Nicholas Payton,
keyboardist Sam Yahel (on Hammond
B-3 organ), guitarist John Hart, and
drummer Billy Drummond. The breezy
arrangements often bear a light, swinging
70s vibe that is particularly well-suited to
Payton’s clear, bell-like tone, reminiscent
of Clifford Brown and Blue Mitchell.
And the players meld surprisingly
well. Check out the interlocking solos
on the nearly nine-minute version of
“Footprints” or the dreamy harmonies on
“Teru.” This cohesiveness is due largely to
Yahel (who has played in the Yaya 3 organ
trio with saxophonist Joshua Redman) and
Drummond’s ability to provide the right
amount of rhythmic glue.
Ultimately, Mysterious Traveler does what
every good tribute CD should: It showcases
all the strengths of the original material
and invites the listener to explore Shorter’s
works, while highlighting the inventiveness
of five young players who succeed in
their quest to be worthy standard-bearers.
Thanks to Chesky’s commitment to high-
quality sonics, that’s a ticket to ride. GC
Further Listening: Charlie Haden/
Hank Jones: Steal Away and
Footprints: The Life and Music of
Wayne Shorter
HOT WAX
Horace Silver
Quintet: The
Stylings of Silver.
Rudy Van Gelder, engineer. Classic
Records/Blue Note 1562 (200-gram
mono LP).
Classic Records’ outstanding series of Blue
Note mono reissues continues with 1957’s
The Stylings of Silver, which finds the Hard
Bop pianist/composer and his bandmates
in terrific form from start to finish.
A rousing pace is immediately
established with the minor-key workout
“No Smokin’,” in which the musicians
really get a chance to stretch their stuff,
and continues with “The Back Beat,”
wherein tenor saxophonist Hank Mobley
Excellent Good
and trumpeter Art Farmer trade excellent
solos over the Teddy Kotick (bass)/
Louis Haynes (drums) rhythm section.
“Soulville” is a playful minor blues that
begins and ends with a start-stop beat and
Kotick’s cat-walking bass line, bridged by a
middle section where once again Mobley’s
and Farmer’s horns take flight, followed
by Silver’s own “When Johnny Comes
Marching Home”-themed piano solo.
“Home Cookin’” is a funky, down-home
number with plenty of sass and swing,
while “Metamorphosis” adds a dash of
samba-infused spice. The album ends with
the record’s only non-Silver-penned tune,
a lovely and mellow take on the Wood-
Mellin ballad “My One and Only Love.”
Mastered by Bernie Grundman on a
tube mono cutter, the sound of Stylings is
notably rich, warm, and rather midnight-
hued. The horns in particular are strikingly
natural sounding. Hank Mobley’s tenor
has a throaty, burnished quality, his
smooth solos unfurling like so much
smoke; Art Farmer’s trumpet is likewise
natural, without the bright, spitty, too-
close feeling recorded trumpets often
have. The dynamic range ebbs and flows
with a natural balance, and while the bass
and drums are also nicely captured, Van
Gelder had mixed results with Silver’s
piano, which generally lacks body and
weight, especially in passages when the full
ensemble is playing.
Never mind this minor complaint. Fans
of vintage Blues Notes and especially of
Silver and his excellent horn players will
find Classic’s release a welcome place on
the record shelf. Wayne Garcia
Further Listening: Horace Silver:
…and the Jazz Messengers (Classic
mono pressing); Hank Mobley: Hank
Mobley (Classic mono pressing)
Fair Poor

Hindemith: Ludus
tonalis; Suite
“1922.” Boris Berezovsky, piano.
Anna Barry, producer; Neil
Hutchinson, engineer. Warner
Classics 63412.
Hindemith’s Ludus tonalis isn’t often
heard, perhaps because its name doesn’t
help. The CD’s booklet freely translates
it as “Game of (musical) notes,” but the
Latin title doesn’t inspire confidence in
pleasurable listening, nor does the work’s
complexity. Its prelude and postlude
flank a dozen fugues that alternate
with 11 interludes, indicating a Bachian
exploration of polyphony and tonality.
Add to that its technical challenges,
daunting for pianist and listener alike.
But when played with the easeful
virtuosity and vitality pianist Boris
Berezovsky brings to it, it’s hard not
to want to hit the repeat button.
Berezovsky’s performance of Ludus
tonalis reminds us that Hindemith wore
his composing technique with a grace
that enables the most complex sections
to sound eminently musical. The subdued
Prelude and peaceful first Fugue draw the
listener into the music, and by the time
the playful second Fugue comes around,
thoughts of “where has this music been
all my life” surface.
Like a great chef, Hindemith mixes and
matches the flavors on offer, following
the serene sixth Fugue, for example, with
a spicy, light-hearted march interlude. The
interludes include some the work’s most
riveting music; some offer quicksilver
fleetness, others crushing energy, still
others, like the longest, the seventh
Interlude marked Molto largo, monumental
weight. Berezovsky’s playing throughout
is superb, dashing in the virtuoso
sections, gently delicate when called for,
and always with a firm line holding the
structure together.
Music Sonics Extraordinary
The Suite “1922” was written 20 years
earlier, when the young Hindemith was
considered a scandalous avant-gardiste. Music
Classical
Its five pieces include movements called
Boston and Ragtime, and a flashy, percussive
Shimmy, all done with the requisite
ferocity. The longest though, is the poetic
Night Piece, which Berezovsky plays with
consummate tenderness. Paul Lewis recently stepped into the
This is one of those CDs where you fray with a disc devoted to the three
don’t think about the sonics because sonatas of Opus 31. The release at
the engineering does what it’s supposed hand, which accommodates ten more
to do—stays out of the way and lets sonatas on three CDs, is the second
you hear the music. The piano is solidly installment of a complete cycle, its
located in the aural picture, timbres are release timed to coincide with Lewis’
accurate, and the listening perspective concert performances of the canon in
is that of a good seat in a decent hall. Europe and the United States during
Dan Davis the 2005–2007 seasons. Lewis comes to
Further Listening: Berezovsky: the task with strong credentials, having
Chopin-Godowsky Etudes; Liszt: coached with Alfred Brendel, and with the
Transcendental Etudes
Beethoven: Piano
Sonatas Opp.
13 (Pathétique), 14, 22, 53
(Waldstein), 78, 79, 90, 101, 106
(Hammerklavier).
Paul Lewis, piano. Martin Sauer,
producer; Philipp Knop, engineer.
Harmonia Mundi HMC 901903.05
(three CDs).
We start with the premise that, individually
and especially collectively, Beethoven’s
piano sonatas are works about which no
one pianist can say everything there is to
be said. Which in turn means they cannot
be over-recorded; there’s always room for
new views of this music, new responses
to its opportunities and challenges.
Nevertheless, interpretive benchmarks
have been laid down for these works by
some very great artists, so a newcomer has
a lot to contend with when he goes into the
studio: What Beethoven put on paper, and
what the several generations of keyboard
giants have engraved for the record.
Excellent Good Fair Poor
The Absolute Sound February 2007 139
Classical
support of an outstanding label that has
an excellent record of identifying young
talent and backing it for the long haul. All
he lacks, to judge from what is here, are
the imagination, personality, and musical
brilliance to make an impact in a crowded
field— precisely what Beethoven himself
was trying to do when, as a young pianist,
he wrote the earliest of these works.
The playing is deliberate, punctilious,
and to a great extent, uninvolving.
What shines through is not Beethoven’s
brilliance—the daring harmonic feints,
the unorthodox structural gambits,
the surprising turns of phrase, and
the overwhelming forcefulness of the
argument—but his rationality. Lewis
can be commended for bringing out
the smooth connections between ideas,
the poise, and the joyful command of
the piano’s sonic resources that are to
be found in these pages. On the other
hand, he has little use for rubato (how
dryly he ends the second movement of
the Pathétique), too often allows the drama
of Beethoven’s long-range harmonic
action to fizzle (for example, the march
in Op. 101), and comes nowhere near
conveying the dynamic scale Beethoven
calls for in these scores (a real drawback
in the Hammerklavier). While it’s hard to
reconcile the Apollonian and Dionysian
impulses in this music, the composer’s
great exponents—among them Kempff,
Serkin, and Gilels, even Pollini and
Brendel (on a good night)—have been
able to do so.
It used to be the piano was one of the
hardest instruments to record; now it’s
one of the easiest. The sound on these
discs is close up and very good, though
there’s a bit too much room reflection for
my taste, as though the goal were to make
Berlin’s Teldec Studio sound less studio-
ish and more like a recital hall. The mike
placement, not far off the strings and
just in front of the pianist’s face, captures
a lot of breathing and vocalizing in
addition to the ample weight and bright
tone one expects from a modern Steinway.
Ted Libbey
Further Listening: Beethoven
sonatas (Gilels); Beethoven sonatas
(Serkin)
Music Sonics Extraordinary
140 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Szymanowski:
Harnasie. Songs
Of A Fairy-Tale Princess. Love
Songs Of Hafiz.
Soloists, City of Birmingham
Symphony Orchestra and Chorus,
Simon Rattle, conductor. Stephen
Johns, producer; Mike Clements,
engineer. EMI 64435.
A fortuitous injury exempted
Szymanowski from service in the killing
fields of World War I, which he spent at
his family’s estate in the Ukraine. There
he began his desertion of his earlier
Germanic hyper-Romantic style for more
exotic musical climes, producing the two
song cycles on this disc, Songs Of A Fairy-
tale Princess and Love Songs Of Hafiz.
Based on translations of medieval
poetry, the eight Love Songs are lushly
sensuous, permeated by flutes and harps,
the tinkling of bells, and perfumed
orchestration typified by muted violins
and delicate washes of color. But they
make their full impact through the singing
of Katarina Karnéus, whose lovely mezzo
adds further sensuality to the luxuriant
orchestra. The six Songs Of A Fairy-tale
Princess utilize texts by the composer’s
sister; the three on this disc orchestrated
years later, full of impressionist, fragile
coloristic writing. If they seem to
have less impact than the Love Songs,
it’s primarily because soprano Iwona
Sobotka’s uningratiating voice makes
their abundance of wordless melismas
sound more effortful than luxurious.
Sandwiched between the two song
cycles is one of Szymanowski’s most
popular scores, the ballet Harnasie. It was
written in the 1920s and explores another
exotic terrain, the highland music of the
Tatra Mountains. The plot concerns the
eponymous bandit band’s abduction of a
complicit bride from her wedding feast.
Excellent Good
The music largely replaces the composer’s
hothouse impressionism with more
muscular stuff, including full-blooded
choral sections, hyperactive percussion,
and violent rhythms, along with sections
like the depiction of a misty mountain
pasture. Rattle’s orchestra and chorus are
up to the music’s demands but a weak
tenor detracts from the whole.
Recorded in 2002, Harnasie suffers
from a reverberant setting, light bass, and
a veiled recording that obscures details.
Engineered in 2006, the Songs Of A Fairy-
tale Princess also lack immediacy. But the
Love Songs Of Hafiz, made in 2004 and in
the same venue, Birmingham’s Symphony
Hall, is well-detailed, with firm bass and a
nice bloom to Karnéus’ voice. DD
Further Listening: Szymanowski:
King Roger (Rattle); Harnasie (Wit)
Sacchini: Œdipe à
Colone.
Soloists; Opera Lafayette, Ryan
Brown, conductor. Max Wilcox,
producer; Wilcox and Antonio d’Urzo,
engineers. Naxos 8.660196-97.
You remember Oedipus at Colonus? You
don’t? It was the last of three dramas
by Sophocles based on the story of
Oedipus—the one in which that
quintessentially tragic figure reaches the
end of his road, having come to terms with
the terrible deeds of his young adulthood.
While Antigone, from that same cycle,
inspired far more 18th-century operatic
settings, Oedipus at Colonus eventually made
it to the musical stage thanks to a 1785
libretto by Nicolas François Guillard,
which Antonio Sacchini set the following
year. Of course you’ve heard of Sacchini.
You haven’t? He was a contemporary of
Haydn, and a leading opera seria composer
in the second half of the 18th century.
Fair Poor
Classical
He bounced around—Naples, Venice,
London, Paris—and suffered his share
of disappointment along the way. His
death at age 56, no doubt hastened by
dissipation, came just weeks after Marie
Antoinette reneged on a promise to
have this opera, Sacchini’s masterpiece,
performed at Fontainebleau.
Notwithstanding that sad denouement
to Sacchini’s career, Œdipe à Colone entered
the repertory of the Paris Opéra and
survived long enough to earn the praise
of Berlioz, who particularly liked the way
the title character’s conflicting emotions
are limned in the penultimate scene of Act
III, where the libretto aspires to the noble
language of Corneille. Unfortunately, that
is also where it departs from the tragic
grandeur of Sophocles, substituting a
happy reconciliation of Oedipus with
his son Polyneices for the altogether
grimmer conclusion of the original. But
in late 18th-century France, as close as the
“déluge” was to coming, one still had to
bring an opera to a happy conclusion, and
end it with a ballet.
Of course, the real problem with Œdipe
à Colone was not so much conceptual—
quite a few masterpieces are flawed—as
circumstantial: 1786 was also the year
of Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro. By then,
opera had headed in a new direction, and
works like Œdipe, which with its dignified
manner and emotional restraint harks
back to Gluck and the style of the 1760s,
were already outmoded. Still, Berlioz was
right to admire it, and there is much to
admire in this recording, which effectively
brings the opera back into circulation
after more than a century and a half.
Credit first of all Ryan Brown, a
relatively recent arrival on the early music
scene in the nation’s capital, for creating
a first-rate period-instrument company
in the Opera Lafayette Orchestra and
Chorus, and doing the spade work to
prepare a performing edition of Sacchini’s
score. Brown conducts an affecting
performance. His tempos are well judged
and the playing is energetic and shapely,
despite occasional little insecurities in the
string ensemble. The singing and French
diction are excellent across the board, with
standout work from the two tenors (Robert
Music Sonics Extraordinary
142 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Gretchell as Polyneices and Tony Boutté as
Theseus) and well-realized accounts from
François Loup in the role of Oedipus and
Nathalie Paulin as Antigone.
The recording, made from a concert
performance with additional sessions,
admirably captures the ambience of a
medium-sized hall, perfect for this music,
and affords a solid, detailed image of
the orchestra and principals (the chorus,
placed slightly distant, occasionally
comes off sounding a bit indistinct). The
sound has immediacy and an appealing
naturalness, but falls just short of the
bite and weight needed to produce a truly
arresting sense of presence. TL
Further Listening: Gluck: Orphée et
Eurydice (Opera Lafayette); Mozart:
Die Zauberflöte (Christie)
Kronos Quartet
and Mogwai:
The Fountain.
Scott Fraser, producer. Nonesuch
79901.
With credits ranging from CSI episodes
to the films Doom, Pi, and Sahara, Clint
Mansell had transformed himself from
alt-rocker—as guitarist/vocalist for the
British band Pop Will Eat Itself—into
serious composer. Although inhabiting
a tier below such Oscar-toting big guns
as John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, and
James Horner (as well as legends like
Morricone and Rota), Mansell may soon
be considered a top-shelf film-score
stylist by genre aficionados who prefer
darkly romantic atmospheres á la Angelo
Badalamenti and Gabriel Yared to mega-
orchestral blockbuster bombast.
The Fountain, Mansell’s third score for
director Darren Aronofsky, and second
using San Francisco’s Kronos Quartet,
should exponentially increase his following.
Excellent Good
Beyond the cachet of the science-fiction
adventure flick itself, the score boasts
the built-in classical-crossover appeal of
almost anything Kronos lays its bows to,
the trendy post-rock allure of the Scottish
band Mogwai, and the intrigue generated
by the wedding of the two.
Kronos—violinists David Harrington
and John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt, and
cellist Jeffrey Ziegler—leads the chamber
world in exotic collaborations. But this
amalgamation was less than live. Mogwai
recorded its parts in Glasgow the month
before Kronos went into Skywalker Sound
in Northern California, and a vocal chorus
was tracked independently in New York
City. For all the long-distance runaround,
however, the end result is tremendously
powerful. The twain do meet in nine tracks
that reach an eight-and-a-half-minute cli-
max in the breathtakingly dramatic “Death
Is the Road to Awe,” which gives Howard
Shore (Lord of the Rings) a run for his mon-
ey before yielding to a reflective solo-piano
denouement, “Together We Will Live For-
ever.”
Like most film scores, The Fountain
does not range too far afield from a few
fundamental themes, including a particular
repeated five-note motif (the backbone
of “Stay With Me”) that echoes in one’s
memory like tubular bells. But Mansell’s
simple melodies burst with emotion when
stretched to their dynamic extremes.
Solo turns are de-emphasized in a mix
that strives for cumulative effect and
achieves it on a huge, deep, reverberating
soundstage in which individual elements
inch forward with striking clarity and
then recede into a chiming, droning,
rumbling blur. With no gratuitous pop
song tacked on, and pieces ordered in a
logical narrative, The Fountain makes for
rich, pleasurable, and evocative listening—
especially without accompanying visuals.
Derk Richardson
Further Listening: Philip Glass:
The Hours: Music from the Motion
Picture; Craig Armstrong: Film
Works 1995-2005
Inventions. Music Of
Bach, Eisler, Beffa,
Bartók, Klein, Martinu, Kreisler.
Renaud Capucon, violin; Gautier
Capucon, cello. Etienne Collard,
producer; Frédéric Briant, engineer.
Virgin 32626.
Fair Poor
Classical
The shadow of Nazi Germany hangs
over much of this disc. Aside from Bach
and contemporary French composer
Karol Beffa, all the composers here
were refugees or victims of Nazism. The
Capucons begin with Bach, playing seven
of the 20 Duos for Violin and Cello arranged
by Frederick Neumann from a variety of
the master’s works. At first it seems odd
to hear familiar pieces like the Gavotte
from the English Suite No.3 played by a
pair of strings, but the music takes on an
extra degree of expressivity along with
elegance in this fine recording. Beffa’s
Masques I and II, works that occupy almost
a third of the disc’s 73 minutes, tend to
the dolorous, indulging in a sometimes-
animated kind of minimalism that rather
vanishes from the mind after listening.
A transcription of Bartók’s early Popular
Hungarian Melodies, seven miniatures add-
ing up to about six minutes, pack a punch
beyond their length with catchy tunes,
rhythmic thrust, and wide emotional
range. Hans Eisler’s two-movement Duo
opens with an attractive minuet followed
by a puckish vivace movement, both played
fetchingly by the Capucons. The Moravian
Gideon Klein left few works in a brief life
that ended in a Nazi concentration camp
in 1945. The first movement of his Duo
is full of fiery contrasts; the second, a
Lento, ends in mid-phrase, its unfinished
state adding to the music’s emotional im-
pact. Fellow Czech Bohuslav Martinu’s
1958 Duo No. 2, like his first essay in the
form, is a powerful, compact work that
explores the coloristic and dramatic pos-
sibilities of the two stringed instruments;
its rhythmically supple Adagio is notable
Music Sonics Extraordinary
144 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
for soulful expressiveness. The disc ends
with Fritz Kreisler’s Miniature Viennese
March, a brief, sweet dance movement in
which the Duo becomes a trio with the
addition of pianist Aude Capucon.
The performances are first-rate. If the
solid engineering may very slightly harden
the violin’s upper reaches, it also gives us a
sound picture full of vitality and captures
the colorful playing of the Capucons.
Balances are good and the musicians are
closely placed center stage, avoiding the
unrealistic soundstage spread often heard
in chamber recordings. DD
Further Listening: Capucon Duo:
Face à Face; Brahms: Piano Trios (G.
Capucon)
SACD
Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring.
Bartók: The Miraculous
Mandarin. Mussorgsky: Night
on Bald Mountain.
Los Angeles Philharmonic
Orchestra, Esa-Pekka Salonen,
conductor. Sid McLauchlan,
producer; Fred Vogler, engineer.
Hybrid multichannel. Deutsche
Grammophon 289 477 6198.
This SACD release—an increasingly
infrequent event for Universal Classics—
brings together three orchestral
showpieces known for their elemental
energy, performed by Esa-Pekka Salonen
and the Los Angeles Philharmonic in
Walt Disney Concert Hall. Stravinsky and
Disney had, as they say, “a history.” For
the classic 1940 animated film Fantasia,
the iconic producer distorted both the
meaning and musical substance of The
Rite of Spring, infuriating the composer.
Le sacre was on the program when Disney
Hall, endowed by Disney’s widow, opened
Excellent Good
in 2003. This live concert recording
from last January doesn’t quite make full
amends for the ancient transgression.
There’s a slick homogenization to
Salonen’s interpretations that is only
heightened by the LAPO’s brilliant but
sometimes bland virtuosity. Missing
is the last word in direct emotional
potency—erotic power, the power of
nature, the power of the supernatural.
The beginning of the Stravinsky work
lacks a sense of organic awakening, even
if it’s accurate as hell. “The Augurs of
Spring” isn’t sufficiently emphatic and
“Spring Round Dances” should be far
more terrifying. Part Two’s Introduction
is short on the misty mysteriousness that
so many other performances possess.
Likewise, The Miraculous Mandarin evokes
only a generic sense of menace, not the
dangerously depraved aura it should
generate. Trombone glissandos aren’t
nearly lewd enough.
Of great interest is the rarely heard
original version of Night on Bald
Mountain—for all practical purposes, an
entirely different piece than the familiar
Rimsky-Korsakov arrangement. It’s
fascinating but, it must be said, Rimsky’s
version is far more musically and
dramatically cogent.
DG’s sound features a robust bottom
end—organ at the beginning of the
Bartók, all those bass drum thwacks
in Le sacre—and smooth instrumental
sonorities. The surround option doesn’t
add much to a feel for concert hall; oddly,
there’s atmosphere but little air. Even
multichannel devotees may choose to
listen to the very good DSD stereo mix.
Andrew Quint
Further Listening: Stravinsky:
L’histoire du soldat (Järvi) (SACD);
Mussorgsky: Night on Bald
Mountain (Reiner) (SACD)
Brahms: Piano
Concerto No. 2. Four Piano
Pieces, Op.119.
Marc-André Hamelin, piano; Dallas
Symphony Orchestra, Andrew
Litton, conductor. Andrew Keener,
producer; Andrés Villalta, engineer.
Hybrid multichannel. Hyperion
67550.
Marc-André Hamelin is still best known
for his “super-virtuoso” technique and
interest in off-the-beaten-track nine-
Fair Poor
Classical
teenth- and twentieth-century keyboard
material. (See the TAS interview
with Hamelin in Issue 129.) Here, he
demonstrates his authority with core
Romantic-era repertoire.
Hamelin and conductor Andrew
Litton achieve a kind of mind-meld in
their reading of the Brahms Second
Concerto. They collaborate to realize
both the quasi-symphonic nature of the
piece—the expansive Allegro non troppo
in particular—as well as the intimate
character of the two interior movements
that indeed come across “like chamber
music writ large,” as the liner notes put it.
This is music-making of the highest order,
intensely communicative and attuned to
the composer’s mastery of narrative form
and structure. Hamelin, who is a powerful
player in person, never just pounds away,
always performing with nuance, plasticity
of tempo, and subtle variation in tone
color. He’s quite willing to share the
center stage with Dallas’ superb principal
cellist in the gorgeous Andante. For the
finale, though, the pianist’s extraordinary
technical facility can’t help but reveal
itself as the Concerto is brought to an
exhilarating conclusion.
The disc is filled out with the four pieces
of Brahms’ Op. 119, three Intermezzos
and a Rhapsody. They’re beautifully
shaped, with the gentle autumnal quality
of much of the composer’s late music.
Every note is carefully considered, yet
these readings never seem fussy.
Although Concerto No. 2 is a live
recording, you’d never know it from the
lack of audience noise and Hamelin’s
note-perfect execution. As they play the
Music Sonics Extraordinary
146 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
first bars of the opening movement, solo
horn and piano define the character of
the Eugene McDermott Concert Hall
at the Meyerson Symphony Center in
Dallas; the warm sound and mid-hall
sonic perspective wear well. The Op.
119 pieces were recorded in an obviously
smaller venue in Suffolk, capturing
Hamelin’s carefully shaded yet assured
touch. AQ
Further Listening: Scharwenka/
Rubinstein: Piano Concertos
(Hamelin) (SACD); Godowsky:
Complete Studies on Chopin’s
Etudes (Hamelin)
Tchaikovsky:
Violin Concerto. Sérénade
mélancolique. Valse-Scherzo.
Souvenir d’un lieu cher.
Julia Fischer, violin; Russian
National Orchestra, Yakov
Kreizberg, conductor and piano.
Job Maarse and Sebastian Stein,
producers; Stein, engineer. Hybrid
multichannel. Pentatone 5186 095.
This disc presents all the music
Tchaikovsky wrote for solo violin,
material ranging from a genuine warhorse
(the Violin Concerto in D major) to
infrequently encountered material. Julia
Fischer, still only 23, performs with an
emotional depth that belies her age.
Above all else, Fischer is a profoundly
lyrical player. The outer movements of
this excellent version of the Concerto
may be too low in voltage for some
tastes, but it will be hard for anyone to
resist Fischer’s exquisite rendering of
the central Canzonetta—sad and soulful
without becoming sappy. Likewise,
Sérénade mélancolique, often provided as a
filler on concerto recordings, is beautifully
shaped. Fischer starts almost reticently,
Excellent Good
slowly building her sorrowful song.
The eight-minute Valse-Scherzo was
composed just before the Concerto—
all of Tchaikovsky’s violin pieces were
written within a three-year period—and
is overtly virtuosic. There’s not great
musical substance but Tchaikovsky fans
will be happy to make its acquaintance.
Even if Fischer’s style isn’t as flamboyant
as others, with the Valse-Scherzo, and
in the Concerto’s finale, her technical
execution does not disappoint. The
program closes out with Souvenir d’un lieu
cher, two-thirds of which is a “Méditation”
that was the original slow movement of
the Violin Concerto. It’s followed by two
much shorter pieces, one fast and one of
moderate tempo, that have the feel of
recital encores.
Yakov Kreizberg is a sensitive partner
on the podium and at the keyboard. He
carefully shades the accompaniment to
the Canzonetta, especially the winds, as
subtly as Fischer shades her dynamics and
tone color. The RNO reaffirms its status
as one of the world’s great orchestras.
These recordings were studio
jobs (Moscow and Hilversum, near
Amsterdam) with sonics for the violin/
piano work describing a smaller acoustic.
The 5.0 multichannel is naturally
spacious; there’s correct scaling of the
violin. Pentatone’s encoding is gentle on
top, possessing plenty of air around the
soloist. AQ
Further Listening: Khachaturian/
Prokofiev/Glazunov: Violin
Concertos (Fischer/Kreizberg)
(SACD); Tchaikovsky: Violin
Concerto (Bell/Tilson Thomas)
(SACD)
HOT WAX
Villancicos.
Atrium Musicae
de Madrid, Gregorio Paniagua,
director. Jean-François Pontefract,
engineer. Harmonia Mundi/
Speakers Corner HM 1025 (180-
gram LP).
Danses Anciennes
de Hongrie et de
Transylvanie.
Clemencic Consort, René Clemencic,
director. Alberto Paulin, engineer.
Harmonia Mundi/Speakers Corner
HM 1003 (180-gram LP).
Fair Poor
Back in the day—that is, the day before
the compact disc—Harmonia Mundi was
known as an early-music label and its su-
perbly produced LPs. Speakers Corner
gives us two marvelous specimens record-
ed in the late 1970s.
The villancico is a centuries-old form of
popular Spanish poetry and song. Origi-
nally music of the peasants, higher-class
courtiers elaborated on the genre during
the Spanish Golden Age (“Siglo de Oro”)
while maintaining its popular character.
Atrium Musicae de Madrid—four of the
six multi-instrumentalists/vocalists are
members of the Paniagua family—per- harpsichord, lute, etc.—but also more ex- ensemble plays, especially with drums,
form fifteenth- and sixteenth-century ex- otic flavorings, notably bagpipe (bombarde). things get a little murky—but still, these
amples, purely instrumental pieces as well One delightful selection toward the end of grander selections have an undeniable
as accompanied songs. The vocal selec- Side A, “Ritka”, is played, unexpectedly sense of occasion. AQ
tions here deal mostly with love, including enough, on a xylophone. The 11-member
that of the marital sort. (“Kiss me and take Clemencic Consort renders all the dances MUSIC EDITOR BOB GENDRON’S SYSTEM
me in your arms, my darling husband/and stylishly, in a rhythmically vital fashion. BAT VK-300x integrated amplifier; Gallo
in the morning you shall have a clean On the LP, the string instruments, as Nucleus Reference3 loudspeakers; Rotel
shirt.” Now that’s a deal.) An astounding in the “Ötödik Tanze” that begins the RSX-1065 receiver; Sony SCD-CE775 SACD
variety of period instruments are utilized, program, have a wonderfully earthy tone player; Panasonic DVD-RP91 DVD-A
player; Clearaudio Champion turntable;
including guitars, recorders, viols, key- that brings to mind American bluegrass
Clearaudio Virtuoso Wood cartridge;
boards, crumhorns, zither, dulcimer, and a as much as European classical music. The
Bright Star Audio IsoRock GR3 speaker
dizzying array of percussion. The constant unique, complex sonority of the bombarde supports; Synergistic Research, MIT,
variation in texture and timbre makes this alone is worth the price of admission. Monster Cable, and Audioquest cables
an absorbing listening experience, over all Sonically, the best moments occur when and interconnects; SolidSteel 5.5 rack
too soon. In addition to the Renaissance- textures are relatively spare. When the full
era material, Gregorio Paniagua incorpo-
rates a few of his own brief compositions
that are entirely in keeping with the char-
acter of the old music.
The recording is breathtaking in its clar-
ity but believable as a real-time perfor-
mance. Bells jump out at the listener with a
life-like purity that can’t, as yet, be matched
even by high-resolution digital audio. The
same goes for the metallophones that ap-
pear in several pieces, imparting an almost
Indonesian, gamelan-like flavor to the ma-
terial. The disc begins with a percussion
cadence that convincingly moves from the
middle distance to the foreground.
Twenty years ago, Dances Anciennes de
Hongrie et de Transylvanie was resident on
Harry Pearson’s TAS Super Disc List.
Like the Villancicos record, a wide range of
striking instrumental colors are rendered
in the service of a program designed to
give a sense of the music performed in
Eastern European feudal courts. We hear
an intriguing blend of familiar “interna-
tional” dance forms, such as the courante
and sarabande, along with Hungarian,
Slovakian, Czech, and Polish folk dances.
The orchestration includes conventional
forces of the sort that would have been
heard in seventeenth-century France, Ger-
many, or England—strings, brass, organ,
The Absolute Sound February 2007 147

Ghost: In Stormy
Nights.
Taishi Takizawa, producer. Drag City
313 (CD or two-LP).
Since forming in 1984, Ghost has stayed
true to its mysterious and peripatetic
moniker, refusing to dance with any
single partner while tracing a creative arc
that has spanned Krautrock, prog, free-
form jazz, folk, and art-rock without
permanently settling into any one field.
The collective’s personnel has embraced
similar flux; each of its seven prior
albums has been accompanied by at least
one lineup alternation, members coming
and going, appearing and disappearing.
Until now.
In Stormy Nights features the same five-
person cast responsible for 2002’s Hypnotic
Underworld, the Tokyo act’s peak moment
in a career without a misstep. Here, the
quintet again twists the knob on the sonic
kaleidoscope and brings into focus a fresh
array of cosmic colors. The record also
marks a return to Ghost’s improvisory
roots, echoing 1992’s pieced-together
Temple Stone in the 28-minute “Hemicyclic
Anthelion,” a fusion fused of segments
recorded at concerts.
Beginning with death-raygun zaps and
unfolding into an incense-scented sortie
where noise-rock cozies up to meditative
Asian currents, the outré collage
echoes with manipulated frequencies
before segueing into free-jazz territory,
Music Sonics Extraordinary
saxophone squeals teaming with reverse-
feedback swirls before the cacophony
verges on the edge of meltdown. The
challenging, somewhat overlong creation
presents Ghost’s trademark mingling of
Eastern and Western forms, sounding
old and new in its blending of modern
electronics and traditional instruments.
The group’s current arsenal includes
contrabass, frame drums, recorders, and
tabla, though its latest obsession is the
“springer,” constructed by guitarist/
vocalist Masaki Batoh, which incorporates
metal springs, a resonance box, a plasma
ball, and rotating machine to emanate
heavy albeit fluid, theremin-esque tones.
Such components factor into “Water
Door Yellow Gate” and “Gareki No
Toshi,” tympani-led marching tracks
that hypnotize in their refusal to deviate
from a set, recurrent percussive rumble.
The former leans on fuzz-cutting guitars,
foot-pounded pianos, ghoulish black-
metal orchestration, and Kubrick-inspired
cinematic bombast, while the sister song
embraces the bamboo-snapping pulse of
whisked cymbals. A riotous cover of the
Cromagnon’s “Caledonia”—complete
with bagpipes from on high—completes
the sequence, a reaction to what the
band perceives as martial governmental
policies. Though the lyrics are obscured,
the message is clear, Ghost’s achievement
in attaining body-shaking physicality
without turning to ear-deadening
heaviness.
Pending on the format, In Stormy
Nights ends as it started—with mellow,
chimes-ringing, wander-the-hills folk that
relaxes as it exhales. This circle is altered
on LP, where the ordering is slightly
different due to the bonus presence of
a sing-a-long version of “Caledonia”—a
total gas. Sonically, the acoustic studio
material fares best, yet the stamping
Excellent Good
Music
Rock
pianos are authoritatively captured, the
inner tonalities of the wood and wires
coming across with reverberant body and
presence. And while seams occasionally
show, the experimental “Hemicyclic
Anthelion” bests the bulk of similar
attempts at stringing together segments,
lacking finesse yet compensating with
explosive depth. Bob Gendron
Further Listening: Kousokuya: 1979
First Live; Amon Duul: Tanz der
Lemminge
Clinic: Visitations.
Clinic, producers.
Domino 128.
When Clinic burst onto the scene
in 2000 with its still-startling debut,
Internal Wrangler, the Liverpool quartet
was viewed as something of an oddity.
With its tightly-coiled guitar drone,
Ade Blackburn’s horror-film coo, and
propensity for donning surgical masks
during its live performances, the band
looked and sounded like a holdover from
the 60s garage era.
Now four albums into its career, Clinic
hasn’t drifted far from the template it
laid out on its debut; Visitations is awash
in fuzzed-out guitar, howling melodica,
and creep-show organ. “Family” is an
ominous introduction, locust-swarm
guitar enveloping Blackburn as he yelps
desperate incantations. The nightmarish
”Children of Kellogg” is a midnight chase
Fair Poor
The Absolute Sound February 2007 149
Rock
through darkened catacombs that closes
with a brief coda, the band catching
one last breath before an unavoidable
end. “Animal/Human” opens like a
field recording from an ancient Druid
ceremony before time-traveling guitarist
Hartley lets loose a flurry of off-kilter funk
guitar. A sinister “Harvest (Within You)”
finds drummer Carl Turney pounding out
a tribal rhythm as wind-strewn organ, rib-
cutter guitar, and Blackburn’s speaking-
in-tongues chants close in, creating an
undeniable sense of claustrophobia.
True, the album offers little innovation
for anyone familiar with the band’s
previous work, and there’s nothing
that hits the emotional highs of Internal
Wrangler’s “Distortions,” but with
Visitations Clinic has refined a style that’s
wholly its own—a primitive, haunting
murmur that sounds as if it’s obscured by
centuries of cobwebs.
The production aids in this feel.
The soundstage is surprisingly three-
dimensional, cocooning Blackburn
with reverb-heavy guitar and a low end
that can best be described as menacing.
The imaging, however, is fair at best,
though even it adds to the quartet’s
mystery. By its nature, the quartet favors
a raw sound; Blackburn’s vocals are run
through woodchippers, delivered from
moss-caked dungeons and whispered
like a dying man’s last pleas. The band
follows suit, reveling in a dissonance
that is as mesmerizing as it is unsettling.
Andy Downing
Further Listening: Velvet
Underground: White Light/White
Heat; Can: Monster Movie
Tom Brosseau: Grand Forks.
Gregory Page, producer.
Loveless 24.
Not many artists invite
both a former town mayor
and state governor to pen liner notes to
their album. Fewer still have current it-
virtuoso violinist Hilary Hahn as a guest
performer, particularly when their identity
is virtually unknown. And an even smaller
number are in the same echelon as Tom
Brosseau, whose under-the-radar status
Music Sonics Extraordinary
150 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Recordinuge
of the Iss
as one of the best American originals
to emerge in the past three decades will
shock anyone who comes into contact
with his singular timbre and gorgeous
narratives.
A singer-songwriter, Brosseau is a small
fish in a what’s the biggest ocean in the
music industry. He’s an oddly beguiling
figure, a modest, straight-shooting, and
old-fashioned soul whose effeminate
voice and timeless compositions occupy
a parallel universe in which the early 20th
and early 21st centuries coexist and where
technology, gadgetry, and advancements
seem equally unnecessary and outdated.
The North Dakota native is in touch
with his geographical roots, in love with
his homeland, and connected to history
in the same way Doc Boggs was with
Appalachia, Charlie Patton was with
Mississippi, and Lou Reed is with New
York. On Grand Forks, Brosseau further
solidifies and deepens this relationship
while taking listeners to a land that’s
accustomed to being ignored.
The proper follow-up to 2005’s What
I Mean to Say Was Goodbye (Recording of
the Issue, TAS 156), which last year was
bookended by the reissues of Tom Brosseau
and the collection Empty Houses Are Lonely,
the 29-year-old uses the new record as a
platform for his remembrances of the
devastating 1997 flood, an event with
obvious parallels to Hurricane Katrina.
Brosseau also takes opportunities to
ink vivid character sketches that tie into
personal folklore as well as elicit romance
via his plaintive, fireside-lit croon.
Primarily recorded during the summer
of 2006 in a garage in the San Diego suburb
of La Mesa, Grand Forks transfixes with
uncanny presence. Longtime collaborator
Greg Page helmed the sessions, with X
member John Doe assisting. There’s no
sense of the heat that baked its makers,
Excellent Good
yet the sweltering weather triggered
an uncanny sense of focus, wherein
Brosseau’s singing and playing retain an
in-front-of-you simplicity that’s devoid of
any sonic veil or interruption. Pockets of
air surround the percussion, guitar notes
have lifelike decay, vocals are comfortably
warm, and small studio echoes hover in
the distance. The richness is palpable, and
every aspect is resoundingly natural.
Musically, Brosseau keeps arrange-
ments sparse, getting occasional
assistance not only from Hahn, but six
other musicians whose accompaniments
imperceptibly support, sweeten, and flesh
out the acoustic-guitar frameworks and
pure, serene vocals. There are poignant
waltzes (“Fork In the Road,” a weepy
ballad that seems to dust off an old
brown bottle of liquor as it progresses,
Hahn’s deft playing in happy marriage
with co-producer Doe’s sympathetic
harmonizing vocals); country-flavored
shoe-tappers (“There’s More Than One
Way to Dance,” Brosseau’s forehead-
line-rippling falsetto disappearing into
thin air as it persuades and soothes); and
jazz-flecked folk (“Down on Skid Row,”
the slight cymbal taps kicking random
pebbles in a road).
Yet it’s the four closing tracks that
numb the mind, the batch directly and
indirectly relating to North Dakota. The
self-explanatory “Here Comes the Water
Now” gives into inevitable disaster,
Brosseau’s calmness reflecting how at
times humans must concede they have
no control and yield to higher powers, his
repeated finger-picked figure paralleling
the river’s stubborn flow, the subdued
instrumentation functioning as a mini-
orchestra, the words a Noah’s Ark of
information. “Dark and Shiny Gun” leads
on with curiosity-killed-the-innocent
themes, Brosseau subtly quivering and
pausing during key moments, stepping
quietly and foreshadowing death with
ominous grace. “97 Flood” belongs to
the same folk songbook as Bob Dylan’s
“High Water,” arresting with eyewitness
description and majestic minature-blues
fills.
And while not traceable to any
particular place, but instead concerning
everyplace, “Plaid Lined Jacket,” devours
with universal pathos and uncommon
humanity. Brosseau brings a panhandler’s
physical being, daily routine, and bruised
emotions to life, and with a compassionate
Fair Poor
Rock
twist, grants pride to the homeless, his
bluebird falsetto striking a match of
respectability for everyone who’s ever
known what it feels like to be down-and-
out, desperate, lonesome, and poor, and
yet, manages to keep an identity. Upon
hearing Brosseau’s dignified coo, it’s
obvious he’s been there before. BG
Further Listening: Tom Brosseau:
Empty Houses Are Lonely;
Lou Reed: New York
Vince Gill: These Days.
Gill, John Hobbs, Justin
Niebank, producers. MCA Nashville
7334-7337 (four CDs).
Audacious on the artist’s part and
courageous on the label’s part, Vince Gill’s
four-disc These Days set—four albums of
brand-new music—is at its most mundane
a country-music milestone. No artist in
the genre’s history has ever simultaneously
released four new records.
For a fairly modest retail price, listeners
get 43 songs—all written or co-written by
Gill, with the redoubtable Big Al Anderson
as his most frequent collaborator); all
exquisitely crafted in terms of form
and content; all idiomatically on the
money as Gill works his way through
southern rock ‘n’ soul, classic American
pop, contemporary country-pop (which
in Gill’s sure hands owes more to the
Beatles than to, say, Faith Hill), bluegrass,
gospel, traditional country, honky tonk,
and western swing; and all rendered
instrumentally with consummate skill
and electrifying commitment by a team
of crafty veterans.
Music Sonics Extraordinary
152 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
Moreover, producers Gill, John
Hobbs and Justin Niebank have framed
this breathtaking sweep of American
music as well as could be imagined. The
southern rock ‘n’ soul on Disc 1’s The
Rockin’ Record is lean and driving; guitars
snarl all around the tracks or soar Allman-
like into the ether, gospel-styled backing
vocals are suitably heated but in proper
perspective to the fevered leads (note
that on a disc that includes guest vocalists
Gretchen Wilson, Rodney Crowell and
Del McCoury, Bekka Bramlett clears the
field with a gritty southern soul workout
on “The Rhythm Of the Pourin’ Rain”),
and the rhythm sections keep the groove
steady and centered. The stirring, ballad-
oriented second disc (titled The Groovy
Record, Gill’s lone misstep in that the title
hardly does justice to the often turbulent
emotional content here) is suitably
majestic sonically on the orchestrated,
socially conscious entreaty “What You
Give Away,” seductively spare in evoking
the ballet of a last-call come-on in the
piano bar ballad “Faint of Heart,” and
devastatingly melancholy in shaping a
sludgy soundscape for the winsome mea
culpa “The Reason Why,” on which Gill’s
Sophoclean agonizing is lent spiritual
resonance by the deep, humming organ
in the right channel even as the Floyd
Cramer-style slip-note piano on the left
evokes the spiritual drift Gill articulates
in his self-flagellation.
Like these, the discs subtitled The
Country & Western Record (a honky-tonk
album) and The Acoustic Record (mostly a
bluegrass album, with the Del McCoury
Band sitting in on two numbers) are
right where they need to be thematically,
musically, and sonically. Every track
cannot be as transcendent as “The Reason
Why,” but Gill’s remarkable achievement
is in making 43 songs meaningful on
some level, whether he’s going for a
dance-hall scorcher or exploring the soul.
David McGee
Further Listening: Jim Lauderdale:
Bluegrass; Ralph Stanley: Saturday
Night & Sunday Morning
J.J. Cale &
Eric Clapton:
The Road To Escondido.
Clapton and Cale, producers.
Reprise 44418 (CD or LP).
Although J.J. Cale and Eric Clapton have
Excellent Good
a long history together—it was Cale, after
all, who wrote two of Clapton’s biggest
hits, “Cocaine,” and “After Midnight”—
The Road to Escondido is their first “official”
collaboration. One might say they waited
thirty-five years too long.
Cale wrote 11 of the album’s 14 songs,
which is a large part of the problem with
Escondido. Besides the fact that Cale’s
lyrics are lame and singing weak—not
that Clapton’s aren’t, between the two
of them the vocals are so reticent they
might as well have been singing into their
shirtfronts—there is little variation to the
songs. They’re pretty much all variations
on blues or country shuffles, either fast-
paced or slow, with both men sharing or
trading vocals and by-rote guitar riffs. The
tracks are also, by and large, so casually
and dispassionately tossed-off that the
record’s 57-minutes seem twice that long.
There are a few highpoints: Brownie
McGhee’s “Sporting Life Blues” showcases
Clapton’s vocal (he actually sings on
this one) against a sparse background
of piano, organ, harmonica, bass, and
brushed snare. Even the slowed-down
guitar solos are very nice. The Clapton-
John Mayer penned “Hard to Thrill” is
another winner, for the same reasons, and
features the sweetest guitar playing on the
disc. Clapton is also responsible for one
truly embarrassing song, “Three Little
Girls,” in which he more than competes
with Paul McCartney for the “sentimental
slob” crown.
Sonics are not bad, but like the music,
are altogether a little too smooth and
sterile, with no sharp edges or dynamic
bite. Oh, things are clear enough, and the
guitars are firmly embedded in the mix,
rather than being made to stand out. As
noted above, both gents seem like they’re
doing all they can to not have their voices
heard, which, given the results, is probably
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Rock
not such a bad thing. Wayne Garcia
Further Listening: John Mayall:
Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton;
J.J. Cale: Anyway The Wind Blows:
Anthology
Kellie Pickler:
Small Town Girl.
Blake Chancey, producer. 19
Recordings/BNA 01797.
By and large, didn’t 80s rock really suck?
So why does it keep coming back disguised
as mainstream country and biting us on
the ass? If Faith Hill (who bears some
responsibility for this disturbing trend)
could freak out at the selection of
American Idol alum Carrie Underwood as
the CMA’s Female Vocalist of the Year,
wait’ll she gets a load of the cynical debut
album of American Idol finalist Kellie
Pickler.
Producer Blake Chancey, who’s done
exemplary work in his career (especially
with the Dixie Chicks), finds his point of
reference in 80s arena rock as channeled
into the country mainstream by Shania
Twain’s Svengali, Mutt Lange, meaning you
throw a crying pedal steel or a screeching
fiddle into the midst of screaming
guitars, howling strings, and thundering
drums and call it country. Pickler has a
serviceable, reedy voice (think Dixie
Chick Natalie Maines without the soul,
crossed with Jennifer Nettles without the
attitude). But she’s merely working on a
set list; only the scripted between-songs
patter is missing.
There isn’t a moment that indicates
she can do anything but blow you away
Music Sonics Extraordinary
154 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
with volume. A couple of songs that
begin on reflective notes (“I Wonder”
and “My Angel”) soon devolve into
bombast, just like all the others. Subtlety
and nuance are not in the playbook. Nor
is credit. You’ll need a magnifying glass
to find the musicians’ names amidst
Pickler’s encomiums to family, friends,
and BNA staffers. And the songwriters
are completely uncredited (except
generically).
For his part, Chancey’s done a great job
crafting an aural assault that can be easily
transposed to the stage for a roaring
concert extravaganza. Thus the greater
purpose of Small Town Girl as pure
product designed to maximize profits. As
an IPO, it’s a must to avoid. Be insulted;
be very insulted. DM
Further Listening: Carrie
Underwood: Some Hearts; Shania
Twain: Come On Over
Yusuf: An other Cup.
Rick Nowels and Yusuf
Islam, producers. YA/Atlantic 94550.
Since his return to music in 1994,
recording some religious and children’s
albums, Yusuf Islam (a.k.a. Cat Stevens)
has done many a good deed for any
number of excellent causes—from AIDS
to world peace to fund-raising for victims
of the 2004 tsunami—and been widely
recognized for humanitarian efforts. But
the man’s first major-label release in 28
years is still tough to stomach, filled as it
is with preachy lyrics, trite emotions, and
music that, by and large, simply isn’t very
interesting.
The opener, “Midday (Avoid City After
Dark),” isn’t a poorly crafted tune, and
the first thing you’ll notice is that Yusuf ’s
singing voice has changed little over the
years. It remains a smooth, warm, and
Excellent Good
friendly sounding instrument. Maybe
not as sweet and effortless as it was in
his youth, it’s mellowed too. And his
lyrics set the tone for the album. Corny
stuff about children playing in the park,
and walking in the rain, but beware of
the city after dark. A few tunes, such as
“Maybe There’s a World,” sound like the
old Cat Stevens, but too many are either
bland love songs (to woman or God is
unclear) or embarrassingly awful, like
“When Butterflies Leave” and “Whispers
From a Garden,” in which Yusuf recites,
not sings, some truly cringe-inducing
passages (“…though day and night
outwardly appear as enemies, yet both
serve one purpose—each seeking the
other”) against a world-music backdrop.
The recording is quite vivid, dynamically
lively, and upfront, and while the bottom
end is quite punchy, it doesn’t reach down
very far. Separation is rather wide, with
tightly placed images, and even hints of
air around instruments and a touch of
depth. Yusuf ’s vocal is smooth, warmly
captured, and prominent in the mix.
Stevens fans will find a few nuggets in
here; just remember to carefully program
the CD player. WG
Further Listening: Cat Stevens: Tea
for the Tillerman; Slayer: God Hates
Us All
Tartit: Abacabok.
Vincent Kenis and
Michel Winter, producers.
Crammed 230015.
No music, it seems, is out of listeners’
reach anymore. The trails blazed by such
globetrotting “world music” pioneers
as Alan Lomax, David Lewiston, and
John Storm Roberts have become virtual
superhighways, connecting Manhattan,
Myanmar, Mongolia, and Mali. A steadfast
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Rock
engineer with a mobile recording unit
and a committed record label are all it
takes to bring nomadic musicians from
TimbuktuintoanAfrican-musicaficionado’s
home in Paris or San Francisco.
Of the ensembles hailing from the
troubled border territories of Algeria
and Mali, Tartit may be lesser known
than the electrifying Tinariwen, but this
veteran “desert blues” band—founded in
a southern Sahara refugee camp during
the Tuareg uprising of the early 1990s—
delivers a rougher, rawer, mostly acoustic
sound that creates the sense of culture
and place that has been creeping back into
the music of African superstars of late.
Listening to such songs as “Eha Ehenia,”
“Al Jahalat,” “Tihou Beyantene,” and
the title track, it’s easy to picture Tartit’s
five women and four men making music
for themselves by firelight in a tribal
encampment. A dry, unpolished, and
uncluttered mix situates the chant-like,
pitch-challenging voices, indigenous hand
drums, and stringed instruments (three-
and four-string lutes, single-string gourd
fiddle, flute) in a virtual semicircle—
rendering them distinct even while they
overlap in a natural-sounding array.
We may know only through the liner
notes that the soloists are singing morality
tales about loyalty to family, fidelity
to tribal traditions, the inevitability of
impermanence, the necessity of political
solidarity, and the miraculous power of
music. But the singers convey tremendous
emotional depth and nuance, and the
pulsating, midtempo instrumental swirls
cast a mesmerizing spell. As a bonus, on
several tracks, electric guitarist Mohamed
Issaag Oumar’s insistent, corkscrew
lead phrases enhance the hypnotic
effect and spark additional voltage into
the already transfixing performances.
Derk Richardson
Further Listening: Tinariwen: The
Radio Tisdas Sessions; Ali Farka
Toure: The River
Jay-Z: Kingdom
Come.
Dr. Dre, Kanye West, Just Blaze, et
al, producers. Def Jam 804502.
Music Sonics Extraordinary
156 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
New Yorkers proclaim to produce the
best and most pure form of rap, and
Jay-Z is viewed as their ruler, a king who
isn’t bashful about proclaiming his own
greatness. There’s plenty of buzz and
expectation surrounding the return from
feeble retirement of the highly regarded
Brooklyn rapper, whose catalog of hits
(and ever-expanding business ventures) is
thicker than a Chicago deep-dish pizza.
Unfortunately, Jay-Z seems largely
uninterested in his own music on Kingdom
Come, which hits the types of highs
associated with Jay-Z’s better material but
also contains uncharacteristically sloppy
songs that seem listless and uninspired
on both the lyrical and production sides.
Similarly, the sonics lack the typical punch
and precision of his earlier recordings.
The mellow, piano-propelled “Lost
One” provides a revealing look into
the unraveling of Jay-Z’s business
relationships with his former partners
in the Roc-A-Fella company he helped
build, as well the seeming dissolution of
his romance with R&B and film starlet
Beyonce. The wailing samples and horns
on “Oh My God” and the Rick James-
inspired funk of the title track work well
with Jay-Z’s chest-thumping, the tunes
showcasing two of Jay-Z’s biggest assets:
ingenious wordplay and cold, calculating
delivery.
Too bad those moments are in short
supply, as much of Kingdom Come finds
Jay-Z going through the motions. The
most egregious errors occur when Jay-
Z teams with Usher on “Anything” and
Beyonce on “Hollywood.” The two
R&B stars deliver cheesy, vapid choruses
that match overwrought beats and
uninteresting rhymes about strip clubs
and being a celebrity, respectively. On the
reflective, we-made-it meditation “Do
Excellent Good
U Wanna Ride,” featuring John Legend,
Jay-Z talks over almost all of Legend’s
crooning, interrupting the momentum
and highlighting the superfluousness of
the emcee’s commentary and the R&B
artist’s singing. Much of the same can be
said for Kingdom Come. Soren Baker
Further Listening: Common: Electric
Circus; Rhymefest: Blue Collar
Menomena:
Friend and Foe.
Menomena, producers. Barsuk 60.
Menomena songs are fractured by design.
Brent Knopf, guitarist for the Portland,
Oregon trio, created a computer program,
Deeler, that allows the band to record
sound fragments and piece them into
larger compositions, like archeologists
reconstructing the skeleton of some
ancient beast.
On its third album, Friend and Foe, the
band turns its ADD into something both
beautiful and ominous. Instruments play
hide-and-seek in the mix, guitars, drums,
and saxophone surfacing briefly before
being dragged back below. “Muscle ’N
Flow” is indicative of the approach,
skittish drums giving way to bowed guitar
notes before a momentary spring shower
of piano douses the track. Vocals, provided
by all three members, aren’t recorded
until the musical backdrop is complete;
they hold the tunes together and offer a
sense of continuity that might otherwise
be lacking. That’s not to say that the lyrics
are any less shattered or conflicted than
the music. Friend and Foe is as torn as the
title suggests, the band singing, “I got
a stranglehold on indecision”; “I once
believed you were my savior”; “Here I
stand a broken man.”
“Air Raid” finds the spurned trio baring
its teeth, lashing out with a guttural bass
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Rock
line, foghorn saxophone, and dreamy
chorus that drifts in like a fleet of
paratroopers. “Weird” is even darker,
enamel-rattling bass and the lockstep
march of military drums providing the
snarling soundtrack to a grainy snuff film.
By contrast, the tender “My My” tiptoes
on church organ, finger-plucked guitar,
and eggshell piano. The schizophrenic
nature of the tunes means that sometimes
the band abandons an idea before it
can fully develop (the too-brief sax-ual
tension on “Weird”) while others linger
in harbor a shade too long.
Sonics are likewise hit-or-miss,
benefiting from the extra care given to
the out-front vocal harmonies. Imaging is
slightly above average and the low end,
especially the basset-hound howl of the
saxophone, has an authoritative rumble—
surprising when contrasted with the
relatively small soundstage. Other times,
the album’s lack of separation makes the
songs sound compressed, instruments
bumping up against one another like
guests at an overcrowded party. AD
Further Listening: Volcano!:
Beautiful Seizure; Morphine:
Cure for Pain
Neil Young & Crazy
Horse: Live at the
Fillmore East.
Paul Rothchild, producer. Reprise
44499 (CD and DVD).
Neil Young has been promising to open his
archives for well over a decade, seemingly
hinting every year about plans for sought-
after historical concerts, unreleased songs,
Music Sonics Extraordinary
158 February 2007 The Absolute Sound
and scrapped demos. Shortly after issuing
2005’s Prairie Wind, Young finally got seri-
ous about committing to the venture, his
near-deadly brain aneurysm sending a re-
minder to get a move on. The Canadian
legend planned to package the first volume
as a giant CD-DVD box set, taking advan-
tage of high-resolution sound and video
capability. But then, the always-enigmatic
firebrand got upset with how the Iraq war
was being (mis)handled, and recorded
his guerilla Living With War (review, Issue
162).
No longer sidetracked, Young has at
last released the first installment of the
Neil Young Archive Performance Series
(NYAPS), a single-disc compilation of he
and Crazy Horse’s stand at Fillmore East
on March 6 and 7, 1970. Yes, this has clas-
sic stamped all over it—there’s little need
for introduction. Back then, Young was
not even two years removed from going
solo while his mesmerizing debut with
Crazy Horse, Everybody Knows This Is No-
where, had just hit. Augmented with electric
pianist Jack Nitzsche and guitarist Danny
Whitten, Young and his four-piece back-
ing band holed up for a handful of shows
at the famous New York hall, and this disc
confirms, lay claim to a natural chemistry
that prematurely ended with Whitten’s
overdose in 1972.
Just as it is on the depressive genius of
Tonight’s the Night, here, the tragedy is again
magnified, albeit in a different manner.
The veritable looseness, simpatico under-
standing, duck-neck grooves, scuffed raw-
ness, and oven-baked soul that transpires
amidst these 43 blissful minutes are on a
par with the top-notch ensembles of John
Coltrane, Grateful Dead, and Bob Dylan
and the Band, where the music effortlessly
assumes an organic posture that allows it
to flow with the ease of a dripping spring.
Young and Whitten don’t so much duel as
they harmoniously embrace, the burned-
ember tones splattered on agreeable coun-
try-rock canvases that are melancholically
gorgeous (“Winterlong”), pensively hope-
ful (“Wonderin’”), and carelessly addictive
(the prophetic “Come On Baby Let’s Go
Downtown,” Whitten’s signature tune).
Of course, the serious jaw-scraping
occurs during the extended workouts
of “Down By the River” and, particu-
larly, “Cowgirl in the Sand.” The latter, a
truly transcendent performance on which
Young and Whitten seem to be in each
others’ heads while Nitzsche reads be-
Excellent Good
tween the lines, keeping everything a-bob
with murmuring organ chords, is purely
hypnotic, the musicians’ caution-to-the-
wind phrasing, buzzing duke-it-out solos,
and melodious exchanges hitting not only a
sonic level, but one that’s physiological. Ce-
rebrally riveting and impossibly heavenly.
As he did with Greatest Hits, Young again
leans on 96/24 DVD-V technology for
optimum sound. The results are a modest
improvement over the CD edition, as the
soundstage heightened and widened, the
crackling tones sharper, the bass shapelier,
the details more focused. There’s a reel-to-
reel tape feel, though neither format solves
the slightly blurry imaging wherein the
players occasionally overlap. Can the 200-
gram vinyl pressing be far away? Probably
not, though first up is a “raw” edition of
Living With War, stripped of background
gospel vocals.
And there’s more. Volume II of NYAPS
is allegedly being readied for a late spring
date, and the long-anticipated box is to
soon follow. If the forthcoming install-
ments are anywhere close to what’s here,
consider the reissues landscape cornered.
BG
Further Listening: Jimi Hendrix: Band
of Gypsies; Wilco: Kicking Television:
Live in Chicago
DVD-A
The Beatles: Love.
George Martin and
Giles Martin, producers. Apple/Capi-
tol 79810.
A unique, eccentric, and occasionally ex-
traordinary addition to the band’s catalog,
The Beatles’ Love underscores Cirque du
Soleil’s eponymous show, the disc’s twenty-
six tracks weaving rebalanced tunes, archi-
Fair Poor
val matter, and samples and remixes that
achieve an effect unlike anything the Fab
Four and “fifth Beatle,” producer George
Martin, ever produced.
Born of the longstanding friendship
that George Harrison and Cirque du Soleil
founder Guy Lalibert shared, the concept
survived Harrison’s 2001 death. In 2003,
Martin returned to Abbey Road to begin
in what in his words was “a soundscape
of around one-and-a-half hour’s length
using any sound I needed from the origi-
nal Beatles multi-track recordings.” After
receiving endorsements from Paul, Ringo,
Yoko Lennon, and Olivia Harrison, Love
premiered at the Mirage in Las Vegas in
June 2006.
Lacking the visual panache of the
stage performance makes the repurposed
Beatles music initially disorienting. And
for those who’ve committed to memory
the sequencing of each album, it can be
BEST ALBUMS OF 2006
2006’s Best
Rock Albums
By Bob Gendron, Music Editor
1. The Hold Steady: Boys and Girls In
America. Vagrant. (TAS 166)
2. Joanna Newsom: Ys. Drag City. (TAS 167)
3. Mastodon: Blood Mountain.
Reprise. (TAS 166)
4 (tie). Clipse: Hell Hath No Fury.
Jive. & Ghostface Killah: Fishscale.
Def Jam. (TAS 163)
5. TV on the Radio: Return to Cookie
Mountain. Interscope. (TAS 167)
6. Scott Walker: The Drift. 4AD. (TAS 163)
7. Alejandro Escovedo: The Boxing Mirror.
Back Porch. (TAS 162)
8. Mission of Burma: The Obliterati.
Matador. (TAS 163)
9. M. Ward: Post-War. Merge. (TAS 165)
10. Neko Case: Fox Confessor Brings the
Flood. Anti.
downright weird to hear truncated songs,
snippets of familiar vamps and intros,
odd segues and multi-song transitions.
That said, there are some enormously
creative elements. It’s exhilarating to listen
to rough takes of “Strawberry Fields For-
ever” morph into the final version, or the
ornate transition that seamlessly links “Sgt
Pepper”/“In My Life”/“Penny Lane”/
“Piggies” or “Hello Goodbye” melting
into “Within You Without You.” There
are also clever track pairings—vide, the
spiritual contrasts of “Within You With-
out You”/“Tomorrow Never Knows”
and winking political ironies of “Revolu-
tion” and “Back in the U.S.S.R.”
If you have multichannel playback,
avoid the stereo-CD edition and opt for
the deluxe set with the high-resolution 24-
bit/96kHz DVD-A multichannel mix, a
first for any Beatles title. Although the CD
is good, the hi-res multichannel version tri-
2006’s Best
ClassicalAlbums
By Andrew Quint
1. Golijov: Ainadamar (Upshaw/Spano).
DG. (TAS 164)
2. Theater of Voices/Fretwork: The Cries of
London. Harmonia Mundi. (TAS 164)
3. Berlioz: Requiem (Norrington).
Hännsler.
4. Paganini/Spohr: Violin Concertos
(Hahn). DG. (TAS 167)
5. Joel Fan: World Keys. Reference. (TAS 165)
6. Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Vänskä/
Minnesota). BIS. (TAS 168)
7. Rorem: Flute & Violin Concertos. Naxos.
8. Brahms: Piano Concerto No. 2 (Hamelin/
Litton) Hyperion. (TAS 169)
9. Renaud and Gautuer Capuçon:
Inventions. Virgin. (TAS 169)
10. Greenberg: Symphony No. 5. Sony.
(TAS 166)
umphs with channel separation, low-level
detail, and dynamics that are hallmarks of
the format.
Martin understands the subtleties of
multichannel etiquette and knows that
the center-stage is paramount. Thus,
the back channels are fully engaged and
yet so tastefully balanced that vocals are
never left in the shadows. He maintains
the haunting beauty of “Eleanor Rigby”
by delicately shifting double-tracked vo-
cals and harmonies to the rear, envelopes
the listener with the buzz-saw guitars
of “Revolution,” and engages in some
playful fun during “I Am The Walrus”
by diagonally panning the menagerie of
voices from corner to corner. The hi-res
stereo mix is curiously missing, but this
disc offers a tantalizing glimpse of things
to come.
Neil Gader
Further Listening: The Beatles catalog
2006’s Best
Jazz Albums
By Derk Richardson
1. Ornette Coleman: Sound Grammar.
Sound Grammar. (TAS 165)
2. Nels Cline: New Monastery.
Cryptogramophone. (TAS 166)
3. Evan Parker: Time Lapse. Tzadik.
(TAS 167)
4. Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis,
Roscoe Mitchell: Streaming. Pi. (TAS 169)
5. Ben Goldberg: The Door, The Hat, The
Chair The Fact. Cryptogramophone.
6. Matthew Shipp: One. Thirsty Ear. (TAS 162)
7. Patricia Barber: Mythologies. Blue
Note. (TAS 164)
8. Rudresh Mahanthappa. Codebook. Pi.
9. Kenny Garrett: Beyond the Wall.
Nonesuch. (TAS 167)
10. Keith Jarrett: The Carnegie Hall
Concert. ECM. (TAS 165)
The Absolute Sound February 2007 159
BACK PAGE
different parts of the room. After I got
out of graduate school and had few
nickels to rub together, I got introduced
to the high end.

11 Questions for Michael Hobson And the first system you put
together?
Founder and President, Classic Records It was a pair of Apogee Duettas run
Neil Gader by a PS Audio solid-state amp, a CJ
PV-5 preamp, a SOTA Star Sapphire
with vacuum hold-down, a Sumiko FT3
Classic Records is now 13 years tonearm, and a Shinon Red cartridge
old. Are you surprised at the with boron cantilever.
resiliency of the vinyl market?
I am actually. In the early 90s I was What’s the biggest “get” you’ve
asked how long I thought this was achieved with vinyl reissues?
going to last. My original prediction The first was with Miles Davis’ Kind of
was, “I don’t know; I think five years.” Blue. And when I heard Zarathustra, the
Of course, that was when there weren’t LSC-1806 with Reiner conducting the
many turntables and sales were going CSO. That was the first thing we ever
down. So even though I’m trained as a did, so there was a special thrill in that.
statistical economist, I guess I did a fairly
miserable job. The market changed in a Is there a dream reissue that you
positive way—a way I hadn’t originally haven’t nabbed yet?
anticipated. The obvious things that come to mind
are the Beatles. And there are Dylan
Is it generational nostalgia or is titles that we’d want to get to. I’ve
there something else going on? developed a degree of patience in terms
There is definitely a segment that’s about of finding the right time and the right
men like us trying to recapture a little bit approach. But it’s always timing that’s
of their youth—maybe a simpler time, important.
with a format that’s familiar and makes
us feel warm and fuzzy. What still inspires you about your
work?
How do you explain how advanced formats like DVD-A and SACD have Interacting with people who say they
fallen to the wayside, while the LP continues to enjoy such loyalty? love what I do, and to please keep doing
There’s the nostalgia standpoint and what I call an analog revival to a stable point—not it. On a more selfish level, it’s sitting
dying or growing but merely stable over time. And that was happening even before down with my children and listening to
there were advancements on the higher-resolution digital fronts. Also during the digital something that, in my opinion is as good
format wars, analog became a safe place to be. There was more [analog] hardware a job as we could do—a phenomenal
being developed and further advances on the phonostage level and on the record level job in many cases. That gives me a lot
itself—certainly from us. You could buy this format, upgrade your playback, and know of inner satisfaction. Even though it’s a
it wouldn’t just fall by the wayside. business, with overhead and all that stuff,
for me the musical experience makes
It seems like LP mastering and playback keeps improving. Is there a it worth the effort and inspires me to
lesson to be learned from this? continue to do this.
Interestingly, all formats seem to follow the same path. I always say that it’s easier to
encode than to decode. It’s only recently that we’ve been truly able to get off the disc It’s been said that you can tell a
everything that was on there. And there’s still a lot of that going on with digital. The lot about a person by looking at
lesson to be learned is that with any technology it takes time for us to learn how to the breed of dog they own.
process it. Annie and Mugsey, your Jack
Russells, are a breed noted for
For the analog klutzes among us, do you still adjust your own VTA? energy and tenacity. Do you think
I do actually, but I will admit that I’m not a super-tweaker record-to-record. Analyzing this says anything about you?
the proper VTA and enjoying the music are separate processes, so I don’t spend a lot Jack Russells are known to be relentless,
of time tweaking when I want to listen. and that’s absolutely, positively something
I’m guilty of. Someone once said to me
What is your earliest memory of high-end audio? that what makes you good makes you
I was always a hi-fi buff, but I guess it was really mid-fi. One of those blissfully bad. For me it’s the relentless pursuit to
ignorant things—like running four speakers at once with an A/B switch. I was kind make the best possible records. TAS
of an early surround-sound proponent, even though it was only two stereo pairs in
160 February 2007 The Absolute Sound