No. 88 CAN $6.49 / US $7.

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YOUR LAST LOUDSPEAKER? Choose from the Audes Orpheus and the Reference 3A Episode, right here on our cover MORE REVIEWS: A four-box digital player from Cyrus, an affordable DAC from Cambridge, two phono stages from Blue Circle, and lots more PLUS: Buying super high-resolution music to play from your hard drive, five decades (nearly) of 007, and Paul Bergman on the enigma of one-microphone stereo

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Feature
Hi-Res Music on DVD-R Reference Recordings offers you a copy of its master recordings on HRx discs. And theyre not alone. How good do they sound on your gear? 26

The Listening Room

Issue No.88

Reference 3A Episode Reference 3As wonderful Royal Virtuoso loudspeaker grows upall the way down to the ground Audes Orpheus A one-time supplier to the Red Army takes on the loudspeaker state of the art A Two-Box Player From Cyrus Actually, its a four-box player. And it has room for your computer to join the party Cambridge DACMagic There are new reasons to get a standalone DAC, but can you buy a good one at this price?

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Blue Circle Fon Lo Thingee 44 They may look like Blue Circles Thingee computer link, but theyre as analog as they can be Two BIS Cables Analog and USB wiring from BIS Audio AblePlanet Headphones Most noise-cancelling phones are two notches below dreadful. Can you get good ones on a budget? Cover story: Two upscale loudspeakers reviewed in this issue. The black one is the Audes Orpheus, from Estonia. The lighter one is the Reference 3A Episode, from Canada. In the background, an early winter scene. 48 50

Software
The Bond Franchise Looking back on the highs and lows of 007 over nearly a half century 61

Cinema
Apples Hobby The Apple TV does jaw-dropping demos, but its shortcomings can make you crazy 18

The Music of Bond 68 Music can make or break a lm, and the producers of the Bond lms gured this out a long time ago Software Reviews by Gerard Rejskind and Albert Simon 71

Nuts&Bolts
Remembering Stereo by Paul Bergman Not that stereo is gone, exactly, but what does it really mean today? 22

Departments
Editorial Feedback Free Advice Gossip & News State of the Art 4 7 8 77 82 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 3

UHF Magazine No. 87 was published in December, 2009. All contents are copyright 2009 by Broadcast Canada. They may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. EDITORIAL & SUBSCRIPTION OFFICE: Broadcast Canada Box 65085, Place Longueuil LONGUEUIL, Qubec, Canada J4K 5J4 Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383 E-mail: uhfmail@uhfmag.com World Wide Web: www.uhfmag.com PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Gerard Rejskind EDITORIAL: Paul Bergman, Steve Bourke, Toby Earp, Albert Simon PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY: Albert Simon ADVERTISING SALES: Alberta & BC: Derek Coates (604) 522-6168 Other: Gerard Rejskind (450) 651-5720 NATIONAL NEWSSTAND DISTRIBUTION: TransMedia Group Inc. / Stonehouse Publications 1915 Clements Rd. Unit 7, Pickering, ON L1W 3V1 Tel: (905) 428-7541 or (800) 461-1640 SINGLE COPY PRICE: $6.49 in Canada, $7.69 (US) in the United States, $10.75 (CAN) elsewhere, including air mail. In Canada sales taxes are extra. Electronic edition: C$4.30, all taxes included SUBSCRIPTION RATES: CANADA: USA: ELSEWHERE (air mail): $62.50 for 13 issues* US$75 for 13 issues CAN$118 for 13 issues *Applicable taxes extra ELECTRONIC EDITION: C$43, 13 issues, taxes incl. PRE-PRESS SERVICES: Transcontinental PRINTING: Interglobe-Beauce ELECTRONIC EDITION: www.magzee.com FILED WITH The National Library of Canada and La Bibliothque Nationale du Qubec. ISSN 0847-1851 Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product No. 0611387 UHF invites contributions. Though all reasonable care will be taken of materials submitted, we cannot be responsible for their damage or loss, however caused. Materials will be returned only if a stamped self-addressed envelope is provided. It is advisable to query before submitting. Ultra High Fidelity Magazine is completely independent of all companies in the electronics industry, as are all of its contributors, unless explicitly specified otherwise.

Editorial
The Audiophile Boutique Our on-line catalog might seem peripheral to our magazine itself, since our raison dtre is information. However it is difcult to nance an independent magazine like UHF purely on advertising, and that was true even before the recent economic meltdown. We actually started our rst store in 1988, offering a single record label and nothing else. But back to The Audiophile Boutique (www.audiophileboutique.com). Its original mission was to sell brand new but discontinued gear. When we set it up we (well, actually, I) made a serious error. Though the site had a who we are link, the Boutique was not visibly identied as a part of UHF. We tried to put a healthy distance between it and the editorial side, and it backred. Why? Because branding (that familiar modern buzzword) is the key to success. UHF has a hard-won reputation for reliability and neutrality, and we had chosen to discard that advantage. We have begun correcting the error. The familiar UHF logo is now on every page of the Boutique. Of course it and The Audiophile Store share a shopping cart, and you can mix and match orders from both sites. The process of unication will continue. We have now added brand new non-discontinued products, such as Thorens turntables, Goldring phono cartridges, and Moon phono preampliers. Still available are the upscale electronics from Van den Hul and tube headphone amps. As we have done since the inauguration of the original Audiophile Store, we offer nothing we wouldnt recommend to our friends (which of course some of our readers are). In some cases, we have written evaluations in PDF, and not everything in them is a compliment. Looking for a review? Just Google oneor not Sources of news may become scarcer because of the Internet (ask any newspaper publisher), but opinions are offered freely. Even in the area of high-end gear, views are just a search query away. Youll forgive me if I dont include actual URLs, but Ive been seeing opinions ofhow to say it? Dubious value? No, thats too kind. Just after we had completed our evaluation of one of the Thorens turntables for our Audiophile Boutique (and we had put it on line, warts and all), we ran across an extended review of the same model on a supposedly reputable audiophile site. Only it may not have been the same model, because some of the stated specs were wrong. The author had bought the model used. It had been extensively modied, and he remodied it just as extensively before evaluating it. He then trashed it with colorful language, well salted with factual misinformation. And then there are sites where you can read reviews by people who have actually purchased the gear evaluated. Since most of them have just bought the product, they are either (a) delighted (they did choose it, after all), or (b)angry at having been (in their view) robbed, and ready to lash out. If youre looking for perspective, look elsewhere. Naturally, its not only in audio and video that you get on-line opinions in landll quantities. Read the political blogs. Or check reader comments after a political news article on any newspaper site. As with audio reviews, youll see extremes, richer in invective than in command of elementary facts or grammar. You wont come out of it knowing much more than you did before. It may sound self-serving, but I think UHF still has an important role to play.

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This long-running best seller includes these topics: the basics of amplifiers, preamplifiers, CD players, turntables and loudspeakers. How they work, how to choose, what to expect. The history of hi-fi. How to compare equipment thats not in the same store. What accessories work, and which ones are scams. How to tell a good connector from a rotten one. How to set up a home theatre system that will also play music (hint: dont do any of the things the other magazines advise). How to plan for your dream system even if your accountant says you cant afford it. A precious volume with 224 pages of essential information for the beginning or advanced audiophile!

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Have you tested the Wadia iTransportDigital iPod Dock? If not, have you considered it? J.W. Surrey, BC We did consider it, and we have heard it several times, including with our own iPod plugged into it. However we now regard devices like the iTransport as obsolete. Our reasoning goes like this. You cant put music into your iPod without also having it on your computer. And there are now such satisfying ways to get music from computer to music system (see Music Through the Air in UHF No. 87 and Hi-Res Music on DVD-R in this issue) that we no longer see a reason to use the iPod itself as a source. Over the past several issues you have reviewed Audio Space products. I seem to be able to only nd one importer, in the USA, Gini Systems, and was wondering where you obtained these products in Canada ? I am located in Ontario. Dale Clark The Canadian importer is Charisma (www.charismaaudio.com). I read your review of the Audio Space Galaxy 34 in UHF No.87, and I do agree with several of your ndings regarding the ampliers inaccurate instrument separation. I also share your judgment that it possesses an exciting sound, particularly in triode mode. Please allow me to pose this question to you. If you were to place a dollar gure in Canadian or US currency, what other amplier would equal its sound quality in solid-state and tube design? I understand that other ampliers may have better bass or sound-stage. Namir J. It may be more than a little unfair to characterize the Galaxy 34 as having inaccurate instrument separation, but we listened mostly in triode mode, and the available power was sometimes not quite adequate for some of our chosen recordings. That said, we have no short answer to your question. No amplier we know of is perfect, and in any design there are tradeoffs to be made. Audio Space has gone for renement at the expense of power, and that tradeoff may or may not be right for you. There are many paths to Heaven. If we named an amplier that bests the Audio Space at something, it may not in fact be superior in some other way. What we ask of an amplier, or indeed an entire system, is that it get us involved emotionally in the music. Beyond that, the technology is but a means to an end. After reading your review of the Pioneer BDP-51FD Blu-ray player in UHF No.87, I visited the site of Pioneer Canada. Not nding it listed, I called four authorized dealers, who all told me that the BDP-51FD hadnt been in the Pioneer catalog for a long time. Between the time of the test and the publication of UHF, the BDP-51FD had time to disappear from the marketplace. I think UHF should change its name to VHF (Vintage High Fidelity). It would be less frustrating for future purchasers to search for products reviewed in your magazine. Michel Viau VARENNES, QC Sure, if you believe that it takes a mere six months for equipment to earn a vintage label. The big companies change models frequently, as often as every six months, and theres nothing we can do about it. Thats why we seldom review such products, but in this case we did because we were acquiring it. On the other hand, we did let readers know what we thought through our blogwhile it was still current.

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Free Advice
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My system has had Totem Hawk speakers for a number of years, and they seem pretty good as far as depth, soundstage and bass go. However, when listening to symphonic music I get this niggling sense of an almost binary sound (i.e. on and off) from midrange versus treble. I dont get a really unied sense of all the instruments at the same time. Over time that interferes with the enjoyment I get out of my system. Is this an artifact of a two-way speaker system, or the crossover timing? Or have I fooled myself into thinking this although Im sure your expertise doesnt go into psychoanalysis. I havent come across this issue in reading audio mags. If this doesnt seem like a really weird complaint, should I be thinking about an electrostatic speaker or a threeor four-way speaker? Mike Stulken NORTH VANCOUVER, BC We wouldnt suggest such a radical (and expensive!) move just yet, Mike, not until you are able to identify what is really bothering you. We must admit that your description doesnt suggest anything weve run across, but perhaps we can outline a plan of attack. Since you dont mention what system you are using with the Hawks, we dont have much to go on, but try inexpensive (i.e. free) measures rst. In case theres some sort of acoustical phenomenon at work, try altering the speaker placement: move them forward or back, farther apart or closer together, perhaps angled in relation to the wall. Dont worry about the decor just yet, because this is merely an experiment, a fact-nding trip, as politicians like to call their tours of the Bahamas or Hawaii. You can also try altering your seating position. The closer you sit to the speakers, the more you will hear the speakers themselves rather than the contribution of the walls, oor and ceiling. Sit close enough, and you will be experiencing neareld listening, which emphasizes stereo effects. Were not sure what youll nd, but its certain you will hear major changes in the music, for better or for worse. You may or may not hit on a placement that will solve the problem youve identied, but were betting youll know exactly what you need to do next. Is it me or have Castle loudspeakers made a comeback? And yes, they still have those interesting products. Can UHF try one of their higher-end loudspeakers? Why not the very interesting Howard in its current version? 8 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

Is it a worthy descendant of the famed Winchester? Benot Labelle GATINEAU, QC Well, Castle is sort of back, Benot, which is to say that a Chinese company purchased the name and the designs, and is producing them again. We reviewed the new version of the Richmond in UHF No. 83. It was a disappointment, not because the new company doesnt know what its doing, but because Castle has always produced both gems and duds. The Howard was by no means a dud, and it does look like a somewhat reduced version of the Winchester (reviewed with more than customary enthusiasm in UHF No. 30). The Winchester was unique, however, and Castle never produced anything like it again. I own a dCS Puccini player and the U-Clock. I listen to CD/SACD, and listen to DVD and Blu-ray using one of the Puccini digital inputs (connected with an Atlas Opus cable). This leaves me with a second SPDIF input and a USB input on the U-Clock. My amplier is a Pass Labs X250.5. My question is whether I could, without damage, skip the XP10 preamplier. The output of the Puccini is 6 V (maximum), with a rated impedance (balanced) of 3 Ohms, maximum load is 600 (a 10k load is recommended)according to dCS. I dont really understand the load recommendation. Then I have the Pass Labs X250.5 amplier, for which the input impedance (balanced) is 30 k . Finally, the XP10: input impedance is 48 k , and the output (balanced) is 15 V maximum, impedance 1 K (balanced). Can I safely try to directly connect the player to the amplier? From a theoretical point of view, which solution is better, taking into account that I have to use the preamplier built into the Puccini anyway? Are two consecutive preamplifiers better than one? Philippe Martiat BRUSSELS, Belgium We really cant predict the result, Philippe, but we can probably clear up

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the impedance puzzle well enough. Most digital players and preampliers have low-impedance outputs, which can be 600 ohms, and sometimes much less. Passive preampliers are an exception, often having high-impedance outputs, but that is considered a problem, not a feature. However the circuit will sound best if it is unloaded, meaning if the input of the next product has a much higher impedance and makes no signicant current demand on the upstream component. Lets make the example concrete. Lets suppose your preamplier has a 500 ohm output impedance. If the power amplifier has an input impedance of perhaps 30,000 ohms (a typical value), the preamplier will think it is driving an open circuit, and it wont have to work hard. But if the power amp has an input impedance of, say, 1000 ohms, it will draw signicant current from the poor preamp, which doesnt expect to work that hard. It will distort, perhaps heavily. Yes, you can safely leave out the preamp, so its worth a try. The system may sound better without it, or it may not, but youll soon know.

I have been converting my LP collection to 24/96 audio DVDs for a few years, but I am now looking for an alternative to disc playback with the same resolution. All of the les are still in my computer and could easily be transferred to another device via USB connection. I would then permanently connect the device to my audio system and use USB ash drives or cards to transfer future individual projects. Obviously the device would have USB ports and a very large storage capacity, probably 1 TB or more. I have researched some units on the Internet, but it is hard to tell on some Web sites if device A or B, etc. would do the job. I have looked at the Olive Opus 4HD, as an example, but it has Ethernet and wireless capability, which does not interest me. Some Blu-Ray players have USB ports, but the ones I have seen will not play audio les from them, and of course they do not have the storage capability. All I want is to store my hi-res music on a high delity juke box that will sound as good as or better than that which I get from DVDs with my Arcam DV-139 player. Are you aware of any

such devices that would handle 24/96 audio les? Also, ideally, it would have remote control and a front panel viewing screen. Lloyd Marshall WHITEHORSE, Yukon Lloyd, if you have a modern computer you already have a jukebox. The challenge is to get the music out of the computer and into your stereo system without causing lethal damage. Were not enthusiastic anymore about standalone audio jukeboxes, because they become obsolete so fast. There are no high end hard drives, but buying one that is built into a high end component pretty much guarantees that you will be paying a premium, and also that, as larger hard drives become more common, youll wish you could unplug the one in your component and substitute a new one. Now how do you get the music where you want it to go? USB does work, but unless your computer and your music system are quite close that wont help you. You may want to read the article Music Through the Air in UHF No. 87, ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 9

computer either through Ethernet or wirelessly through a Wi-Fi network. Its optical digital output can then connect to your DAC. As youll see from our two articles, that can yield very good quality sound, much better indeed than what you could expect from even many CD players. That leaves the matter of operating convenience. Several jukebox programs are available for computers, including Apples own iTunes (in both OS X and Windows avors). In the case of iTunes, we control it remotely from an iPod touch, which connects wirelessly and lets you see all the music you have on your computer, including the cover art. Whats better than a screen on the front panel? A viewing screen in the palm of your hand! I was reading the article in UHF No.85, Do Connectors Matter, and found it so interesting. I think connectors are as important as the cable itself, and UHF was the rst toshout it out loud. But the best connector is no connector at all,right ? I tried to connect my speaker cables directly from the amp to speaker, and for some reason I foundthe sound better with my good-quality bananas! Could it be that good quality connectors help to transfer the signal to the last molecule? Robert Des Ormeaux OTTERBURN PARK, QC
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was the difference you were hearing. It is of course possible to get a tight connection with a very good binding post (they exist, and so do unicorns), if the wire is solid core. If its stranded, the connection is likely to be mediocre, and it will get worse with every week that passes by. Just a couple of dumb questions. Now that the television broadcasting industry is moving to digital in the US and eventually Canada, can I assume that: a) The Super Antenna MkIII (in The Audiophile Store) will require a conversion box, and b) will still work effectively? Bruce Fraser OTTAWA, ON Bruce, we use our own Super Antenna to pull in digital high-denition signals (three of them are available in Montreal, where we are). What will require a converter box is your television set, unless its a modern one with a digital tuner. Older analog sets will become useless for over-the-air TV as of 2011 (and they already are in the US). If theyre connected to cable or satellite, they will still work. Our own HDTV doesnt need a converter box, but our DVD recorder does, since it has only an analog tuner (channels 2 through 69). We use that converter with a Super Antenna. I would like to get a 46 Panasonic G10 television set. I subscribe to Videotron HD cable, and I have a Pioneer DVD player. Id like to know what to expect in the way of resolution, not only for HD channels, but also for non-HD. A CNET review of the Panasonic says the denition on SD channels is less than terric. Is this a worthwhile purchase? Andr Plante ST-JEAN-SUR-RICHELIEU, QC Andr, if by SD channels you mean analog channels, theyre going over the dam in 2011 anyway, and in the US its a done deal. An analog channel on an HDTV can look very good, since its theoretical definition of 480 vertical lines is the same as that of a DVD. But heres the irony: its the HD channels whose performance may

and the followup article in this issue, Hi-Res Music on DVD-R. Theyre relevant to what you want to do: play 24/96 les. W hat you will need, no matter which method you choose, is a good audiophile-quality digital-to-analog converter with 24/96 capability. If it has a USB input, as some do, and if your computer is nearby, then a USB cable will work just ne. If not, we recommend an inexpensive Apple product called the Airport Express. It can connect to your 10 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

Well, yes, actually, Robert. Though it seems perfectly reasonable to suppose that the best connector is no connector, as they say on the Internet, YMMV (your mileage may vary). To put it another way, it seems perfectly reasonable all else being equal. But all else may not be equal. With a low-impedance signal like that from an amplier (its source is typically a tiny fraction of an ohm, many times lower than the impedance of the loudspeaker), a very tight connection is imperative, and anything less will cause great perturbation in the Force, to say nothing of your music. A lot of binding posts will not maintain a tight connection on a bare wire (or a spade either, but dont get us started). A good banana will get at least that much right. We would guess that

vary quite a lot, because some of them I have a FirstWatt f5 clone that, if it is and Arcam back then. Twenty years later I am still in this undergo a lot of compression on their built correctly (I didnt build it), draws way to you. With an explosion in the 180 watts during operation (it uses a hobby, but with much different equipnumber of specialty channels, both cable 3amp slo-blow fuse rated at 2.5 amps, ment. I am now looking to upgrade my and satellite distributors are running according to Nelsons manual). Can I use CD source and have narrowed it down to two homegrown products: the Brysshort of bandwidth, and theyll often use this with the SPLC? 2. Is there anything that can go bad ton BCD-1 and the Moon CD-1, both a shoehorn to get the available signals over time with this unit (capacitors, of which you have favorably reviewed into the available space. recently. You can get some idea of possible etc.)? What are the essential sonic differPerry Howell resolution by visiting a dealer whose TV TORONTO, ON ences between the two players? Are they sets are connected to cable or satellite both priced at the point of signicant (the big box stores are more likely to use No, this free version is not complete, though you could spend a couple a Blu-ray player for the demos). Heres a A smaller amplier should present no diminishing returns? of hours reading it. Want the full version? Carl Kung tip, though: if your DVD player doesnt problem, Perry. Do use a quality power You can, of course, order the print version, which we have published VANCOUVER, BC have an HDMI output, you might want cord with it, however. The SPLC should for a quarter of a century. You can get it from our back issues page. to put its successor on the same bill as last a long time ours must be around But we also have a paid electronic version, which is just like this one, 18 years old, and we still use it. What will Carl, youve probably already noticed your new HDTV. except that it doesnt have annoying banners like this one, and it doesnt go bad is the neon bulb, which will begin one important difference: the Moon have articles tailing off into faux Latin. Getting the electronic version is of I just purchased a used Inouye SPLC blinking after its rst year in service. CD-1 costs a lot less than the Bryston course faster, and it is also cheaper. It costs just $4.30 (Canadian) anywhere line lter, in the knowledge that you Thats harmless, if you place it so you ($1500 to the Brystons $2395 at the time in the world. Taxes, if they are applicable, are included. of our reviews). Our expectations were guys used to use one in your reference cant see it. Its available from MagZee.com. pretty much in line with the prices, and systems. After reading one of your reviews, I came across the information I have been reading your magazine the sound was too. that the SPLC uses series components since the early 90s and have always To be more specific, the Moon and is therefore not recommended for respected your points of view and didnt have the solid bottom end of the large power amps. opinion on audio. In fact, it was your Bryston, nor its coherence, but it is a I have two questions. magazine which pointed me away from terric partner for the Moon i-1 ampli1. What about small power amps? the likes of Sony and Yamaha to Rotel er, which sells for the same price. The

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Bryston BCD-1 has more in the way of high end ambitions, and in large measure it delivers what it promises. Which of these players you favor will depend on where your system is going. We should add that, if your future system will include your computer as a music source (for a lot of our readers thats the present, not the future), you will be limited by the fact that neither player has a digital input, allowing you to get at its built-in converter. Bryston has gured this out and now offers a standalone converter. Simaudio doesnt yet, but we wouldnt be shocked if one were in the pipeline. First, Id like to thank yall for an excellent publication and well thoughtout perspectives. I have a question about connecting a subwoofer (KEF 2500) to my current stereo setup (KEF IQ3). According to you, the best way to connect a sub is to use Y-adapters so that the signals to the main speakers remain clean. But it seems using Y-adapter will cause the sub and the power amp to run in parallel.

I wonder if your FYA Y-adapters, or Y-adapters of any other brands, have any built-in electrical components. If they are just plain simple connectors, maybe I can easily modify my existing interconnects to do the job and avoid additional contact points. A lso, what are your reasons for favoring low-level sub connections? REL seems to favor high-level sub connections. REL subs dont have high-pass output and are connected similarly to the way you tested the Q-Sub D8 (sub rolled off below the main speakers), but at high level. If this kind of high-level connection is equally good, I can connect the line-level input of my sub to the speakerout of the power amp in parallel with the IQ3 using KEF-supplied RCA plugs (there are some electronic components built into the plugs). Victor Wang CARY, NC Interconnects usually dont contain electronic components, Victor, nor do devices like our Y-adapter. That said, the three most common connection meth-

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12 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

ods have advantages and disadvantages, and perhaps it would be useful to review them. First, you can use a Y-connector, or (as you suggest) a modied interconnect, to run both the main power amplier and the subwoofer from your preamplier output. The preamp wont have any difculty driving both, because its own output impedance is low, say 500 ohms, whereas the subwoofer and power input impedances are much higher, 30,000 ohms or so. The preamp will think its running with no load at all. That connection gives the subwoofer the cleanest possible feed. The drawback is a Y-adapter adds extra connections to the signal path, and that can affect performance. Second, you can feed the subwoofer from the output of your power amplier (or from the connections at your speakers if thats more convenient). That leaves the signal path for your main speakers as direct as possible, but the feed to your subwoofer will have gone through unnecessary amplication. Since your KEF 2500 subwoofer, unlike the REL, has a high-pass lter, you could run a (presumably long) interconnect cable from the preamplier output to the subwoofer, and another from the high-pass lter to the power amplifier. That has the advantage of allowing you to use the subwoofers controls to tailor the response of your main speakers to match the characteristics of the subwoofer. However the extra circuitry and the two long interconnects result in a performance hit we wouldnt consider acceptable. Not everyone is faced with such difcult decisions. Some preampliers have two sets of outputs, one for the power amplifier and another for the subwoofer. And of course surround sound processors include an output just for the subwoofer. It is nice to know about your site (through UHF). I think it is very helpful. I am a retiree, dont have much knowledge about electronic or sound system. From a garage sale I picked up an R115 Luxman stereo receiver, D373 CD player and cassette deck. They work

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together very well and produce nice, warm sound but do not play with my Lenco L75 vintage turntable. However somebody told me to put a magnetic amp between the turntable and the R115s phono. I did, but it works only if I connect it to the Signal Processor Output, not the input or the phono, and the Signal Processor has to be switched to the off position. I nd it funny, because it goes to the output instead of the input, but it works anyway. I also have a Pioneer VSX D601

receiver (home theatre), which plays everything including the turntable. I have a remote control for this unit but the sound produced is not as good when compare to the Luxman R115. Can I put the Pioneer and the Luxman together in order to take advantage of the home theatre with remote control plus the rich and warm sound from the R115?I dont want to blow everything up. I really appreciate if you can tell me which input and output from the Pioneer goes into which input of the R115. If this ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 13

I have a Linn Ikemi CD player, YBA Intgr amp, Vandersteen 2CE speakers, and YBA interconnects and speaker wires. My Vandersteens were taken, so Im looking for speakers. Im thinking Monitor Audio GS20s would be a great choice. My favorite music is Indian, like Ravi Shankar. Any advice? Jim Kattlus VANCOUVER, BC The GS20s would work quite well, Jim. They are by no means the most efcient speakers available today theyre rated at 89 dB but thats 3 dB better than your Vandersteens. And Shankar is not exactly a rocker. May we assume youve heard, and not merely seen, the Monitor Audios? They are very good, but they have a character quite different from that of the Vandersteens, which have a particularly smooth and rounded top end. The top end of the Monitor Audios, like that of many other speakers, is somewhat hotter and detailed. Make sure you wont suffer from withdrawal before pulling out your credit card. is not right, will you please kindly walk me through whatever way you think it should be. If this works, I can take advantage of the home theatres surround sound system with remote control plus the nice warm sound from the R115. Am I right? Patrick VANCOUVER, BC You are right, Patrick, and the connection is easy to do, though were glad you were kind enough to include pictures of the rear of your receivers. And theres a complication well get to in a moment. Heres what you do. Plug a pair of cables from the Front Amp output jacks of the Pioneer to the Tape 1 Monitor jacks on the Luxman. Connect your main (left and right front) speakers to the Luxman, and the other speakers to the Pioneer. When you want to watch video, hit the Tape 1 button (or switch) on the Luxman, and heres the wor14 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine risome part turn its volume control all the way up. Then adjust the output levels on the Pioneer so that everything sounds right. Why is this hookup worrisome? Its because, before you switch back to some other source on the Luxman, such as the tuner, you need to remember to turn the volume down again. And you have to remember every time. Except for that little potential catastrophe, youll have exactly what you want: surround sound for video, but the warmer sound of the Luxman when youre listening to everything else. Were not absolutely certain why your turntable doesnt work when its connected to the phono input, but by the time the Luxman was built, in the late 80s, a lot of consumer had (unwisely) abandoned vinyl for CD, and the built-in phono preamp had become an extra-cost option. You can connect your outboard phono preamp to any of the high-level inputs that arent busy, such as CD or Video Disc. My Copland CTA-405 amplifier needs KT88 power tube replacements. Asit waspurchased used, I have no idea what brand were the original KT88s. Mine came witha mismash. In searching for on-line information, I am now suspiciousas to what brands/sourcesare legitimate. There seems to be a lot of sleight of hand going on. As well, the lack of opportunity to make direct comparisonsdoesnt help. Irecall mention in a past issue of a respectable tube source. Are you still aware of that source? Any recommendations for particular brands? Im always interested in value for money. Richard Johns CAMPBELL RIVER, BC Youre right to be careful, Richard, because vacuum tubes have become big business who would have thought it? and that has attracted the crooks. There are bogus Russian tubes oating around. And the high prices of NOS (new old stock, which has been on the shelves since tubes were mainstream) has

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caught the attention of miscreants too. only. While I can get around just ne on keyboard and mouse, which are easy to If we remember, the small tubes in a computer, I am not a computer guy. stow when theyre not used, and an iPod the Copland were from JJ Electronics, I dont care if it is a PC, Mac, laptop or touch as a remote. And thats all you and the KT88s from Ei in Yugoslavia. desktop. Being able to change songs need Oh, wait a minutenot quite. The Divergent Technologies, which imports from my listening position would be Copland, has in the past stocked the JJs. nice, and I dont care how long USB computer needs a monitor. Theyre not expensive, but they take up space, and Were not certain about the Eis, which cable? An iPhone? I know this is a vague question but thats not convenient if the computer appear to be more difcult to obtain (Tube Depot lists them as out of stock). the more specic you can be the better. is adjacent to your audio gear. You can Scott Mercier make it a full-edged computer setup, The source youre probably thinking of BARRIE, ON but it will need to be within cable range is partsconnexion.com, which grew out of your DAC. If thats possible, youre of Sonic Frontiers. Its in Canada, though its prices are listed in US dollars. The cheerful news, Scott, is that you golden. We dont mean this version, you already know how works. a PDF, Ifit not, it Its gets more complicated, denitely dont because need the $5000 liquidand you open it with Adobe reader, etc. I purchased a Wavelength USB DAC cooled rig, which is probably optimized because youll have to go wireless But weit. also a paid electronic version, is complete, without banners and like your stereo for hard-core gaming. What which you need between the computer and I have no computer to use with I have this one, or articles in uent gibberish. know, that whole cart-before-the-horse is air-cooling, and preferably without a system. That means adding a Wi-Fi That one, it is That complete, has to be ordered with a credit card. To open one that broadnoisy fan. points directly to one of router (we recommend thing. While I like the convenience, it is because it, you also have to download a plugin for your copy of Adobe Reader or Acrobat. casts on 5.8 MHz), and a device such as the sound quality that has me interested. your choices, the Mac mini. Youll receive a user nameprobably and password allow you to download your full copy of Youll want to a pair of large the Apple Airport Express. My research online has only confused the magazine. Youll need the same user name and password the rst time you open me more, as anything from a $5,000 outboard Firewire hard drives, one to the magazine your computer, the rst time. AfterCan that,you it works like hold your music,but theonly other for backup. advise ofany the size of your liquid-cooled PC to a $600 Mac mini is on other PDF. a must have. I hate to blow $5k of my You can connect it to your new DAC one small Alpha room? For details, visit ourways: Electronic Edition page. To buy an issue subscribe,purchase visit stereo budget on a computer, especially of two a USB cable or an optical Im or considering of Living MagZee. since they are about the only thing out cable. We suspect the optical will be Voice OBX-R speakers, but my room is there that have worse resale value than slightly better, but it wont cost much to quite small 10 by 12 (3 by 3.6metres). hi-. try both and see. However it is very well damped and I will be using the computer for music To that we would add a Bluetooth acoutiscally friendly.

TY

TR A

DING

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ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 15

Im trying to get a sense of whether these marvelous speakers will still have magic in this smaller space. Brian Martin VANCOUVER, BC

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Our Alpha room is a little bigger than yours, Brian, with dimensions of about 11 by 14feet (3.4 by 4.3 metres). However the reason it is so small is that the heavy-duty acoustical work, done many years ago for what was to be a radio production studio, shrank it in every dimension, including height. At higher frequencies it behaves as you would expect, but at low frequencies it is its original, considerably larger, size. W hatever speakers you choose, youll be listening from fairly close. The Avatars may work well, but youll have to work to nd the ideal position. Given that I had just nished reading Gerard Rejskinds latest article on hi- dealers (UHF No. 87), I thought my recent experience with true high-end audio was quite timely. During the past summer I began using my 22-year old Dual CS-515 turntable again. I am using it with a Marantz SR-8001 receiver, and bought a Cambridge Audio Azur 540P phono stage. I had my local dealer do some maintenance on it, which included adding a better quality interconnect. When it was all set up I was quite impressed with the sound quality, which was better than regular CD, but not quite at the level of XRCD or SACD. My father had some old records that

he was no longer using, and I played some of these on my system. One of them, entitled Bongos, Flutes and Guitars, is a 1960 pressing from a company called Sparton Records of London, ON. The disc itself is heavy, rigid vinyl, and the sound quality is nothing short of astonishing compared to the other albums I own. What immediately struck me was the individual timbre of all the different bongo drums. Each one of them had a different sounding thwok that identies the instrument as a bongo. There is a great deal of ne detail as well. I could go on, but sufce it to say this is the best LP I have ever heard. There is so much air around the instruments and it is intensely musical. To put it in perspective, it sounds better (ignoring the cracks and pops) than the Thorens 125th Anniversary LP on 180 gram vinyl that I bought shortly after getting my turntable running again. I felt that a number of these older albums would benet from a cleaning, so I took them to a local high-end shop that has a Nitty Gritty record-cleaning machine. This shop also had a complete McIntosh system set up monoblocks with preamp, turntable, giant Vandersteen oorstanding speakers, cabling as thick as garden hoses you get the idea. The in-store price of this system is $52,000. So naturally, I think that I will have this Bongos, Flutes and Guitars album cleaned, and then ask the owner to play it on this system. If it sounded so goodwith myold entry-level turntable and modest gear, surely this system would blow me away. Well, amazingly, it did not sound anything like I thought it would.My system sounded considerably better. This system sounded at and lifeless gone were the individual sounds of the instruments. The loss of overall musicality was overwhelming. I did notice that a couple of the wood block instruments sounded more solid than on my system but that was the only improvement. One thingthat the owner and I noticedwas some distortion he speculated that the cartridge could be mistracking. I had just had the record cleanedby him, so I was thinking that something had gone wrong during that process. I got the album home and put it on

16 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

my own turntable. The sound was just as I had remembered it, withoutall the cracks, hisses and pops that existed before having it cleaned. So it seems the cleaning was indeed benecial. Do you have any idea as to why this high-end system did not soundanything like it should have? Could amistracking cartridge havedegraded the sound quality to that extent? Recalling Gerards article about the way that a customer needs to be blown away by hi- in order to make the argument for hi- work, this system did absolutely the opposite. This one was the highest-end system Ive ever auditioned,using price as the sole consideration. And it just did not sound good. Obviously, there is no way that my systemshould even be close, yet it wasso much better. Why? Andrew Matthews TORONTO, ON Well, Andrew, it certainly illustrates the fact that mere money doesnt high delity make. However it is certainly possible that the cartridge was mistracking. The demo recordings from the early days of stereo had huge grooves that were more than a little tough for the phono cartridges of the era to make sense of. You would think that modern cartridges would be better at this than those from 1960, but thats not necessarily true. The moving coil cartridges found in expensive systems are relatively poor trackers, though of course they have other virtues. Fortunately, torture tests like these discs of years ago are rare. It might have been interesting to bring some other records with you, ones that were perhaps less challenging technically, but which you have heard sound particularly good on your own system. Perhaps they would have made the dealers expensive system sound the way you would have expected. And perhaps not. There can be a lot of reasons a luxury system may not sound the way its price hints at. A poor choice of components, or at least a poor match, can be a reason, even though the dealers reason for existing is proper matching. Speakers may be poorly placed, cables left loose, awful acoustics, misaligned turntables

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Australian Innovation www.eti-research.com.au info@eti-research.com.au Exclusive North American Distributor Europroducts Marketing, Ltd. www. europroducts-canada.com the list can be long. You saw the dealer clean your record, but did he clean the stylus? Just a suggestion. We dont really know what went wrong in this particular demo. But we have heard countless expensive systems that should have been able to produce great music, but didnt. Indeed, when we go to high end shows, such as CES, such systems seem to be in the majority. We ask the same question you do: why?

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Apples Hobby

Cinema

ts not a TV set, despite its name. It looks, in fact, like an Apple mini that has been squished. The Apple TV is an adjunct to your high-denition television set, but its not a set-top box in the usual sense. It can lend itself to some Apple-class gee whiz! demonstrations, but then you begin to notice all the things it could do, but doesnt. Signicantly, Steve Jobs refers to the Apple TV as a hobby, to distinguish it from t he compa ny s st a r products. So what is it? The Apple TV (C$259 or US$229)connects to your computer, the one that has iTunes installed on it, via your Wi-Fi network or by Ethernet. Through that network and iTunes, it also connects to the Internet. It includes a built-in hard drive (160 MB as this is being written), and various connections to your TV set, including component and (much better) HDMI. The set has to be an HDTV, though, otherwise youll get a stretched image. We got the same problem when we connected the Apple TV to a computergrade LCD monitor. We were puzzled by the considerable heat radiated by the Apple TV even when it is idle. With Apple working to build up its green image, this is something that needs looking into. The box has no power switch. The Apple TV can do the following things. 1) It can let you listen to music that is on the hard drive of your computer. In this it duplicates the features of Apples own Airport Express (see Music Through the Air in UHF No. 87). It includes analog outputs (which means using its built-in digital-to-analog converter),

and it also has an optical output that can connect to your own DAC. 2) It can let you view photos that are stored on your computer on your large HDTV screen. 3) It can let

Flickr. 4) It can let you watch video content on your HDTV. Since this is the Apple TVs mainstream attraction, lets look at that function in some depth. The Apple TV movie experience The Apple TV does not of course incorporate a DVD drive, so youll need to get DVD material you want to watch onto your computer (technically illegal in some countries, including the United States). And here comes a disappointment. Though the Apple TV can stream video over its fast n network connection, it cant read the native DVD format (the les inside the Video_TS folder). You have to convert them to the H.264 format (MPEG-4 also works, but

you view photographs from

The Apple TV is loaded with eye-opening ideas, but its time it delivered on what it seems to promise

with much lower resolution). Conversion can be done with various free software (such as Handbrake on the Mac), or iTunes itself. Thats time consuming, however, and this extra complication will be a dealbreaker for a lot of videophiles. You wont be doing much spur-of-themoment watching. Do the conversion and the streaming result in a performance hit? We uploaded the DVD version of The Princess Bride to our Apple TV, and compared the playback to that of the original DVD on our Pioneer BDP51FD player. There was (and we could have pred icted this) no comparison. Its just as well we didnt try to compare it to our Blu-ray version! One good piece of news: though most North American NTSC-standard DVD players will not play PAL DVDs, the Apple TV will. Of course that means copying the movie and both decrypting and dezoning it. We uploaded several European PAL lms to the Apple TV, and they looked gorgeous, which is to say better than the same movie played using a portable computer as a DVD source. Of course Apple makes no secret of the fact that it considers silver discs to be obsolescent, if not downright obsolete. The Apple TV, no doubt for that reason, is optimized for the iTunes store. And here it offers some dazzling possibilities. You possibly know that the Apple Web site is the go-to place for watching trailers of the latest movies, including unreleased ones (www.apple.com/ trailers). The Apple TV can let you browse those trailers and watch them on your big screen. Some of the trailers, though by no means all, are available in HD, which stands for high denition sort of. At top right on the next page is the Apple TVs main menu, easily navigable with the supplied remote control. The

18 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

list may be enough to get you drooling, but lets see how much of the promise Apple TV actually delivers on. This is an incomplete article in the free issue of UHF, The article is of course complete in the print edition, and in the paid electronic edition available at MagZee. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del

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dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa

ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eum my nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 19

liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. 20 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

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mcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi blamcon utpat verostio et wisi tetueros nos autat lutat prat, commy nullamet adip esto delis dignisl dolorpe rcilis eum eu feu feugiam zzrit utat, con elenisi. Commod dolestrud te te euis alis niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto dit nos accum nummodiam, quamet, sequiscipit accum adiat volorem nos aliquatuerit iusto con velenit ilit luptat. Od tat lor sim nisci tat at ut iril eum vullaor se ex enim dignim digna commodolore commy num veniam dolut wiscipit exercil ut ilis eum non volessim dunt wisl do do commod magniat. Ut wisisim zzrit nonsequatie magnit nos nonsed delenim dolenis adiatem zzrilisit ad doluptat. Quat ip eugait wissenis adipissecte do eu feugait praessit ute veniamc onulla feugueril et lore min essenis nos et amet lore molobor percipit in eniam, vulla coreet, venim eugiate dolore dionseniam nulla conse dip ex exerat, sequat nosto do euisciliqui etum delit nos nonse tem iriureet, secte dolor sum zzriustrud tat, suscips ustrud tie vel dolore modo conse modolortio et nos nit utem zzrit irit pratueros dolorem diat, quipit nonsequate magna facip exer summodion vullaore duis euismod ignibh esting et, vel estrud estrud dipisit inciduis aliquam eum doloborer sed tionsenit lum nos dolore eum niam iustrud euis am euipsum molobore cor at. Duiscilla adigna feugiam vent aliquam alit eu feu facip eu feugait ulputat, volortisisi. Il dignit erostie facidunt atio dolorem iustie magna core duipit wismod modit vel inibh et lore commolo rerosto delesseniat. Eliquis ex eugiam, suscidu ismodoloreet at. Molum zzriurem ad tem ipit aliquat. Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore vulpute feu faci endre dipsuscip el etumsan diametu mmodoloreet lore volore faccummy nulla at velit alit lorperos ad

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Remembering Stereo

Nuts&Bolts
by Paul Bergman

his is hardly a new phenomenon, but perhaps it is time we paid attention to it, as consumers, and also as producers of recorded music. More than half a century ago, the stereo LP launched a revolution in the way that most of us listened to music at home. There was, suddenly, a recognition that we have two ears, not just one, and that therefore we ought to be listening with two loudspeakers. However, if you see a photo of your favorite singer taken during a recording session, he or she will be standing in front of just one microphone, not two. If you listen to music with headphones, as more and more people are doing, it is difcult to avoid noticing that there is little difference between the sounds reaching your two ears. Has stereo become a relic of the past? As I hope to explain, stereo has long had two quite different denitions, and one of them is not inconsistent with singing or playing into a single microphone.

Stereo as 3-D sound Audiophiles have quite a different take on music recording from that of most record producers. True stereo, in the mind of knowledgeable audiophiles, is associated with the work of British engineer Alan Blumlein, who, in 1931, took out a patent on improvements to and relating to sound transmission, sound recording and sound reproducing systems. This was the now familiar technique of stereo recording using two microphones in a particular conguration, to provide sound that would appear to the listener to be three-dimensional. Indeed, stereo is derived from the Greek word stereos, which means solid, or as we would say today, 22 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

3-D. It may, then, seem more than a little surprising that Blu m lei n h imself did not use the word stereo to describe his system. Rather, he called it binaural, which refers to two ears. I shall add only that, in popular parlance, binaural is today applied to a recording system intended for headphone listening. This is fair enough, since this was the playback system initially promoted by Blumlein himself. He considered that playback through speakers was a compromise.

I need not belabor the obvious, namely that, in the age of 7.1 or more channels, the Blumlein system has been left behind by a good deal of the audio industry. It can be argued that this is not entirely the case, since some smaller record labels continue to produce recordings explicitly using a Blumlein pair of microphones, or some variant, such as the ORTF conguration, with its wider sound stage, or the M-S Side conguration. Such systems are often used to record classical music or jazz, where it appears to be desirable to re-create the sound of the actual event, and there is no desire to actually create sound in the studio. Creating sound, as opposed to recreating it, is of course less common in popular music recording. In that eld, the producer fancies himself as much a creator as the artist, or indeed more so (you may wish to Google the name of Milli Vanilli). However, you should not suppose that there were no alternatives to Blumleins vision. More than two ears? If Blumleins patent seems to be from a distant past, in fact stereo that is, the recording with multiple microphones for playback through multiple speakers began in the 19th Century, not long after the invention of the phonograph itself. There was even a two-channel recording and playback system from the age of the horn phonograph. It was not actually conceived as some sort of enhancement to sound quality, but rather to its quantity: two horns could play twice as loud as one.

Not that its gone, exactly, but we can see it packing its bags

It was later, but not really that much later, that the rst attempts were made to use multi-channel recording to add, quite literally, another dimension to ow do you t two separate channels of sound into the single groove music. of an analog record? It was easier than one might assume, for it could In 1932, Bell Laboratories (the be done by returning to a system that had been used in the early days famous scientic research facility where, of the phonograph, and which, indeed, had been at the heart of one somewhat later, the transistor would be of audios many format wars. developed) recorded the Philadelphia The winning side would be Berliner, who used lateral modulation of the groove Orchestra in what we would recognize to represent the music signal. His commercial adversary, Edison, the man who had as stereophonic sound, with two micro- invented the phonograph, chose a different system, vertical modulation, also known phones, and two separate tracks cut onto as the hill-and-dale system. It was a poor choice, more subject to vertical vibraa recording lacquer. That rst record- tion from the turntable motor, and with the cutting chisel often digging into the ing was awkward to play back, since it recording blanks aluminum base during loud passages. However, the two systems required two tone arms and cartridges, did co-exist for a time, and I still recall old broadcast transcription turntables which perfectly positioned on the appropri- could be switched from one to the other. These turntables were equipped with what ate spots of their respective grooves (a were, essentially, stereo cartridges, complete with four connection pins. decade later Emory Cook tried unsuc- It was in fact evident that this system could be used to play a stereo recording. cessfully to commercialize just such a You could modulate one channel in the lateral direction, and the other in the vertisystem). By 1933, Bell Labs found a way cal direction. to put the two channels of sound into a As I have indicated, however, vertical modulasingle groove, using the 45-45 encoding tion offered lower performance, which meant that No, this free is not complete, though spend a couple that would be used in the stereo LP ofversion the two channels would notyou be could of equal quality. of hours reading it. Want the full version? 1958 (see the sidebar on this page). The solution, quickly found, was what came to be You can, course, order version, which we have As you can see, the British andof the known asthe theprint 45-45 system, in which eachpublished channel for a quarter of a century. You can get it from our back issues page. Americans were working on multi-chan- was angled at 45 degree from vertical. But we also have a paid electronic version,concept which is just like this nel recording quite independently, and This can be a difcult to fathom, andone, in except that it doesnt have annoying banners like this one, and it doesnt their concepts were rather different. electrical terms it was much simpler. The left+right have articles tailinginformation off into fauxwas Latin. Getting the electronic version used to deect the cutting chisel in is of Whereas Blumlein used two channels course faster, and it is also cheaper. It costs just $4.30 (Canadian) anywhere because we have two ears, Arthur Keller- the lateral direction, with the out-of-phase informathe world. Taxes,tion, if they are applicable, are included. left-minus-right, in the vertical direction. A man and his colleagues in at Bell Labs were Its available from MagZee.com. of the view that the more channels you simple matrix allowed recovery of the two channels, had, the better could be the illusion of which could be of equal quality. reality. By 1933 they were experimenting The adoption of the 45-45 standard caused most playback equipment to become with three-channel stereo. There was obsolete. Mono cartridges were not designed to be compliant in the vertical directhen no practical way to record three tion, and would therefore wreak damage on a stereo groove. Many turntables channels, and so these experiments suffered from massive vertical vibration, to which mono cartridges were immune, were for live transmission of music, with but stereo cartridges were not. That was especially true of idler-drive turntables, the orchestra in a concert hall, and an which largely disappeared in the years following the stereo revolution. overow audience listening in stereo in a different hall. microphone for every instrument, for three tracks. The departure from the Even three channels was a compro- every singer. Thats one microphone, not two-ear concept is obvious. mise, however, and the Bell engineers a Blumlein pair. The initial reason for the third track envisaged what could be a system with an We can thus see that the idea of was to allow producers to reduce the innite number of channels, to reproduce putting just one microphone in front of hole in the middle effect so beloved the full breadth of an orchestra. In a a singer or soloist would have seemed by producers of what was pejoratively more practical system, there might be a perfectly reasonable to the people who known as ping pong stereo. Mercury, microphone for each and every instru- gave stereophonic sound its name. notably, used three microphones for ment, and the signal from each would be its post-stereo recordings. However, it reproduced by a separate loudspeaker. Three-channel recording was still attempting to use two-channel Thus, we might suppose, a 70-channel In the 1960s, engineers sought to stereo to recreate a natural reproduction system might be adequate for a good- extend the dynamic range of magnetic of the original acoustics, with the third sized symphony orchestra. I should add tape, with new formulations (some of (central) channel to be evenly distribthat they were not, at the time, consider- which turned out to be disastrous), but uted between the two channels of the ing the possibility of surround sound. also by making the tape wider. So was commercial recording. For others, the Let us now notice what this then- born the rst recorder using 12.6 mm three channels were a convenience that idealistic concept was calling for: a (half-inch) tape, on which were placed had little to do with either concept of

The 45-45 Stereo Groove

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stereophonic sound. A possible example of a producer not overly concerned with stereo, at least in his earlier days, is George Martin, who recorded the famous hits by The Beatles. Martin did, of course, have experience with stereo recording, since he had been a producer with EMIs classical music division, but it took him some time before realizing that the young men from Liverpool were serious album material, and of course rock singles were then not often released in stereo. Accordingly, he used his three tracks for purposes of exibility. When the early Beatles music was eventually released in what was billed as stereo, the voices were on one channel, and the instruments on the other. The rest of this article can be found in the complete print or electronic version of UHF No. 84. Order the print issue from www.uhfmag.com/IndividualIssue.html (its case sensitive). Or subscribe at www. uhfmag.com/Subscription.html. The electronic issue is available from www. magzee.com. We now cont inue in im itat ion Latin. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim 24 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis

ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh

eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat v ulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto c o m m olo r t ie d olo r p e riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eummy nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu facipsusto ea faccums andignis dit illaore do odit ilis dipit do euis eui te feugait niamcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil

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lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi blamcon utpat verostio et wisi tetueros nos autat lutat prat, commy nullamet adip esto delis dignisl dolorpe rcilis eum eu feu feugiam zzrit utat, con elenisi. Commod dolestrud te te euis alis niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto dit nos accum nummodiam, quamet, sequiscipit accum adiat volorem nos aliquatuerit iusto con velenit ilit luptat. Od tat lor sim nisci tat at ut iril eum vullaor se ex enim dignim digna commodolore commy num veniam dolut wiscipit exercil ut ilis eum non volessim dunt wisl do do commod magniat. Ut wisisim zzrit nonsequatie magnit nos nonsed delenim dolenis adiatem zzrilisit ad doluptat. Quat ip eugait wissenis adipissecte do eu feugait praessit ute veniamc onulla feugueril et lore min essenis nos et amet lore molobor percipit in eniam, vulla coreet, venim eugiate dolore dionseniam nulla conse dip ex exerat, sequat nosto do euisciliqui etum delit nos nonse tem iriureet, secte dolor sum zzriustrud tat, suscips ustrud tie vel dolore modo conse modolortio et nos nit utem zzrit irit pratueros dolorem diat, quipit nonsequate magna facip exer summodion vullaore duis euismod ignibh esting et, vel estrud estrud dipisit inciduis aliquam eum doloborer sed tionsenit lum nos dolore eum niam iustrud euis am euipsum molobore cor at. Duiscilla adigna feugiam vent aliquam alit eu feu facip eu feugait ulputat, volortisisi. Il dignit erostie facidunt atio dolorem iustie magna core duipit wismod modit vel inibh et lore commolo rerosto delesseniat. Eliquis ex eugiam, suscidu ismodoloreet at. Molum zzriurem ad tem ipit aliquat. Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore vulpute feu faci endre dipsuscip el etumsan diametu mmodoloreet lore volore faccummy nulla at velit alit lorperos ad dio dolortin euis am il dolenibh eummy nonullam il et, quipit in ea faccum nos atue dolorerat la feumsandit enisim velis aut velit veros adipsusto odiamet augait iriliquisim velesse quatet alisi exero odolestrud mincipiscing endre doluptat

prat, sit adignisl utet accum volor at, quis adit luptat. Ud dolor incipis modigniat acinibh erilla adignim num nim am, commod ea aut essequate ming ea facin velis dolore magna con ulla feugait augiamcore commy nisi. Ommy nim in ea augait, quam dolore consed tetue eu faccum vel utat. Ut aci bla facip et autatis autem dolenim nit, velisl ing el er suscill utpatin henibh ese duis alit, suscil dolesto coreet et vel et nummy nulla adit lorpero odo doluptatie verosting et vel utpat volorem quat adionsent ad molore deliqui psummy nit luptat, venibh erat. Duissi exerat, quis nos nulla feugueros niat, quisl dunt aute te dolor si. Ecte tatisim irit erat er sum iliquat am erit adiam, susci bla faci exerilit at praestrud magnim volore tis aut nim nostio commy nim deliqui sciduis nonsequatue euip ea aut ad eugait, conse ex essi tat, quis num ipit utem dolor sit aci eros dolorperat, volor sum atumsandre magna aut nos at praestie velisl et augait. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse

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s there still interest in high-resolution music? Of course we dont mean high-rate MP3 or AAC, or even 16/44 Red Book CD resolution. The poster boy for high-res music has been SACD (and its short-lived rival, DVD-Audio), but there is more. Reference Recordings, one of our very favorite audiophile labels, has long offered an enhanced Compact Disc using HDCD technology, yielding impressive results, at least with a player that can decode the hidden information. It also released a sampler on SACD (Tutti, RR-906SACD), though its not certain whether there will be a second one. But it also produces recordings in the HRx format, essentially DVD-R copies of Keith O. Johnsons master recordings. The catch for the moment is that no player you (or we) own can play back HRx. A prototype player, made by PS Audio, was shown at the last CES. It sounded spectacularly terricuntil the buffer ran out of room, which happened often because of the very high resolution of the recordings. What is that resolution? Johnson records in 24-bit 176.4 kHz. Why not 192kHz? The reason is that 176.4kHz is exactly four times the sampling rate of a Red Book CD, and so downsampling can be done without the ugly artifacts of conventional downsampling. Why sell HRx if there is as yet no player? But in fact there is: your computer. The HRx box contains a DVDROM, with les meant to be copied to your hard drive. And from there Well, its not that straightforward. Odds are your computer hits a wall beyond 96kHz. That means downsampling Keith Johnsons brilliant work, preferably to half the original sampling rate, 88.2 kHz. For this listening test we borrowed a DAC newer than any of ours, an Audiomat Tempo 2.6 (C$4995), shown on page 28. It goes out to 24/192 with a whole lot of stops in between, and 26 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

Hi-Res Music on DVD-R

Feature

would give us (we presumed) the best quality we were likely to get from HRx. We also tried two DACs we had on hand (and which are reviewed elsewhere in these pages), namely the Cyrus DACX and the Cambridge DACMagic. Though it is certainly possible to

stream digital audio over Wi-Fi (see Music Through the Air in UHF No.87), high-denition music les are likely to strain the available bandwidth up to and beyond the breaking point. For that reason we transferred our test music to the hard drive of a MacBook Pro laptop, and connected its optical digital output jack to the DAC with our bre-optic cable and a mini-TOSLINK adapter. Though we could have used iTunes to handle the music, the same audio engine is available directly from the Finder (the Mac counterpart to Windows Explorer). But our computers cannot yet handle that sort of resolution, which meant we had to downsample. Even so, we had to rejig the settings on our computer to give us 24-bit resolution and the highest sampling rate it is capable of, namely 96 kHz. This is not done through a preferences panel, as it really should be, but through a program which smacks of improvisation, included in the OS X Utilities folder, called Audio and Midi Conguration. Its shown on the next page. For playback on Windows, Reference recommends the Media Monkey software (free at mediamonkey.com). Even so, theres a serious oversight in the Apple OS. Though our MacBook Pros input can be set to a sampling rate of 88.2 kHz, its output cannot. Although the DACs we had on hand can handle 88.2 kHz, we were stuck with downsampling to the awkward rate of 96kHz, with inevitable artifacts. With Windows, what you can achieve will depend on your hardware. In this regard the Audiomat Tempo 2.6 is future-proof: it can handle all commonly used sampling rates up to and including 192 kHz. It lacks only a readout to let the user know the sampling rate of the incoming signal. We then copied four of Reference Recordings HRx les onto the computers hard drive. We also threw in

a 24/96 file from a Canadian record company, Fidelio (available on DVD or via download). In our Omega room, we set up the MacBook Pro and the Audiomat DAC. For each selection, we had for the sake of comparison the same music available on some other format. In this session, we listened rst to the alternative format, and then to the high-resolution version on hard drive. Though what we discovered is not the last word, all three of us were delighted with what we learned. We think you will be too. Dance of the Tumblers This piece is from Nikolai RimskyKorsakov, and is included on the CD Dances From the Operas (RR-71CD). However it is also included on the Tutti SACD, and that was the version we played. Listening to it with our Linn Unidisk 1.1 player, we gured it would And it was that CD we used as a point first time we played this selection it be difcult for even HRx to sound any of comparison. crashed. Oh, it didnt bring OS X down better. We hesitated about this. Like all with it, but it stopped dead and returned And we were right, though this was recent RR recordings, this one is encoded to the beginning. It later crashed again, by far the best sound we had heard in HDCD. Our Counterpoint DAC has the only high-resolution le to do so. coming from a computer. Its surpris- HDCD decoding, but we know that it ing, said Gerard, and musically it isnt cant really hold a candle to our Unidisk Sussex Overture inferior. He praised the smooth highs player. We therefore played the CD with Malcolm Arnold was perhaps not the and solid lows, the pleasing timbres and the Unidisk, accepting that the dynamics most celebrated of 20th Century British strong rhythm. would be somewhat compressed (HDCD composers, but if you lend an ear to some of his works you might well wonder But we werent unanimous. From decoding undoes the compression). the very rst notes theres less authority, Predictably, the HRx version did why he wasnt better known outside his said Albert Simon. Everything is there, very well against the CD, throwing up a homeland. He drew inspiration from but whats lacking is a certain depth of vast sound stage that was nothing if not the folk music of his country, like Ralph textureperhaps a certain thickness of impressive, and it seemed to breathe Vaughan-Williams, say, but his music texture. Toby Earp agreed. Theres more than the CD. The emphatic was even more infectious. This p1991 lots of weight but less complexity, chords near the beginning are richer en? recording (released as w ill hap w whatRR-48) got Keith O. Johnson a Grammy he said. The dynamics were a little and subtler, said e, Toby, and more k no u yo d u an d of co rse t pag e nex one, an e is on th nomination, though he lost out to a compressed, theres a little blurring of seductive too. He also enjoyed the duet er ad th e if th n te o k Web si Just clic isers smooth. vert t. ad Philips opera which, reportedly, had cost detail, and the ow isnt as Still, between oboe and clarinet, the instruen e m o th m to t at h o rig et at th ull g Yo e Intern th a million dollars to stage. We suspect it was very nice. Indeed, only because ments seeming full-sized, the excellent to d e. te su ec is n is n th e co well. u ar ads in if yo issue as e othermore ic th n that historical value is the reason for we had just heard the SACD did we nd musicianship in evidence. Gerard f o o tr y ec an el ) h (paid Try it w it h the full w it its presence in the short HRx catalog, anything to criticize. agreed, enjoying the almost liquid ow s rk o w it e f cours O because Arnold himself conducted the So far so good, but on the next selec- of the woodwinds. tion the HRx would be against weaker Was the pacing as good as with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The competition. CD? Toby found it different, but noted HRx version couldnt come close to what that the movement we were listening to we heard from the LP. That may not come as a surprise Symphonic Dances had the odd marking of non allegro, and if, like us, you consider top-grade This is a dramatic and delightful perhaps it should be like this. orchestral suite by Rachmaninoff, Albert was the holdout. He praised vinyl difcult to beat. Unfortunately, orchestrated by Respighi. Note that, for the great energy and the detail, but analog recordings of that era were often some reason, Reference Recordings has found instrumental timbres not truly recorded on the hottest new tape forreleased two versions of the suite, the faithful. Its like white bread, he said, mulations. What no one then knew was how swiftly those formulations would second far weaker than the rst. This compared to whole wheat. is the original, available as RR-96CD. Perhaps we should mention that the deteriorate.

ter acti n i s t i , s Ye

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ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 27

tars and voice was much more natural, without the brittleness of the Compact Disc. The instrumental textures on the HRx were very dense, but there was no confusion. Dserts Weve mentioned that Reference Recordings is only one of numerous companies offering high-resolution music in the form of computer files, usually 24-bit with 96 kHz sampling rate. We had put one aside to include in this evaluation, a production of the Canadian label Fidelio. The label offers these high-definition recordings on The LP (long discontinued, unfor- HDCD encoding, naturally), and now DVD, or via download. Either version tunately) still sounds marvellous today, its available on HRx. We selected the costs $30, a considerable premium over with a lively, powerful orchestral sound jazz standard Some of These Days, with its the price of the Red Book CD. However characteristic of Johnsons best work. In animated serving of guitars and violin, you can download individual tracks. the HRx version, based on analog tapes as well as the voice of Hot Club founder Dserts was reviewed by Albert Simon that were nearly two decades old, the Paul Mehling. in UHF No.87, and he praised it both for sound was decidedly less energetic. Like Keith Johnsons other record- its artistic vision and for the quality of We agreed on this, though we focused ings, this is not a purist sound pickup the sound. It features an Early and World on different aspects of the music. I love with a single microphone pair. Keith will Music ensemble called La Nef (the name the syncopation and the edgy brass in do whatever is needed to get the sound means the nave, which is the central Arnolds music, said Toby, but with he wants, including actually placing part of a Gothic church). It has recorded the HRx version its less edgy. The space speakers right among the musicians to for several audiophile labels, including is spread out, and its deep. The differ- provide ambience. In this session, done Dorian, Analekta, SRI, Atma, and now ence is what you would expect changing at the studio of Fantasy Records, he reac- Fidelio. This was a joint project with a turntables. tivated a long-disused echo chamber, an French ensemble, Alla Francesca. Albert, for his part, noticed some- underground dungeon with speakers at What is on this recording is not thing odd in the lower midrange. He one end and a microphone at the other. period music, but what is now referred to quite For years now, we have been publishing, our as Web site, a freeand PDF nonetheless rated the HRx sound Of course the result is what counts,on and New Music, which Albert, in his version of our magazine. acceptable, even if it lacked the transpar- in this case, as in so many others, the review, called music without borders. was The reason We know youre looking for information, ency and sparkle of the LP. Gerard result is is simple. stunning. We selected the and opening piece, Caprices that is almost certainly why youve come to visit our site. And thats why less happy. The dynamics are pretty We were split down the middle on dune Dune. we give away some competitors to be a startlingly good, but the highs are wrong, he said, this what evaluation well, not consider quite down Good as large the CD was, we mostly amount of informationfor free. with a phasy effect, like someone talk- the middle, since there were three of agreed that the high-denition le was sucks We would give and it allAlbert away for free, if we stayyet. in business. ing through a mailing tube. That us. Toby preferred thecould CD, still better On the CD the oud (an early Recent gures indicate that each issue is getting downloaded as many the life out of the music. with Albert pronouncing this the least plucked instrument) nearly got lost, but as 100,000 times, and that gure keeps growing. In either format, though, this is successful of the HRx recordings. It not with the digital le. The timbres are Yes, know, we had a nickel for each download music worth listening to. What gives us we has less if energy and less presence, he more realistic. The thing with the CD Truth is, were in the business of helping you enjoy music at home pause is that, apparently, the only truly said. Its like a two-dimensional image is that it brings you up close, yet you under the best possible conditions. And movies too. Well do archival format we have is the LP. Vinyl projected on a screen. still cant what hear we all need the detail. And the to get the information to you. is forever, commented Gerard. to do in order Toby was a little more nuanced. The forcefully-plucked chords were smeared Of course, also want you he to read published too. We spacewe does open up, said, our but the on editions the CD. hope that, having read this far, youll want to read on. The Hot Club of San Francisco frequency balance is different. With The percussion was particularly This California jazz group is of the HRx its easier to separate the indi- improved. Listen to the percussion at course inspired by the original Club Hot vidual notes, but its harder to separate the rear, said Gerard. You can make of prewar France, which featured such the melodic lines. However, he added, out layers of sound in front of them, stars as Django Reinhardt and Stphane Some people might prefer the HRx yet you can hear everything. And those Grappelli. It made a couple of excellent version. tubular bells, if thats what they are, are recordings for the now defunct Clarity And, right on cue, Gerard put up his edgy and articial on the CD. label, and this recording, the Yerba Buena hand. The musicians are not quite as But Albert, despite admiration for Bounce (RR-109) for Reference Record- close in, but I prefer them that way. On the greater depth of image and the rich ings. It sounds superb on CD (with the other hand the top end on the gui- percussive sounds, was less happy with

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28 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

the sound of the oud. When you pluck the strings of the oud, you can hear the resonance of the body. Not here. On the CD it sounds like an oud. Before we put aside the Audiomat DAC, we should mention that its distributor, Mutine, also lent us a full set of Actinote cables, nearly $14K worth, asking us to listen to the full kit. We did, and it all sounded glorious. The set included interconnects, speaker cables and power cables. This isnt a cable review, of course, but we were happy to have the privilege of borrowing this luxurious gear in order to give our new high-resolution media their best chance to live. The Cyrus DAC X High-denition music will appeal most to audiophiles who already own very good systems, which is to say those who have come up against the undeniable limitations of the Compact Disc. But a pretty good system may not include a DAC like the Audiomat, to say nothing of all those cables. We wanted to repeat the experience with the two other DACs, both reviewed in this issue. The Cyrus DAC X is about half the price of the Audiomat, but we listened to it with its optional PSX outboard power supply, which adds to both the weight and the outlay. We decided that the Symphonic Dances recording would tell us the most, and we listened to it with the Audiomat once more before moving to the Cyrus. Albert was so charmed he had difculty calling up the (recent) memory of the Audiomats sound, but Toby reserved t he gold medal for t he Audiomat. This is very different, he said. The woodwinds were particularly changed, with some spurious harmonics, and I didnt really like the mixed woodwind passage. Gerard agreed, but praised the Cyrus for its tremendous control of transients, and especially its dynamics. Its not just during the loud parts. During softer passages theres a dynamic tension, as I waited for the orchestra to explode again. The large optional power supply was clearly an advantage, though the Audiomats outboard supply is about the same weight.

The Cambridge DACMagic We had spent some days breaking in new gear using, as source, our Apple Airport Express and the Cambridge DACMagic, and it was evident that considering the price of this little box, it packed some punch. We were eager to hear it with more demanding material. It sounded terric, though this time we had to compensate for the fact that the DACMagic costs less than the sales tax on the Audiomat. The dynamic range added by the higher resolution remained evident, and we were pleased to note how much of the experience was preserved. Albert noted with pleasure how easy it was to follow the strong melodic lines, and how well-separated the instrumental timbres remained. But of course we could also hear what was missing. Everything is a little atter, said Gerard, and a little greyer. The strings arent as silky. Toby noted the way that the space was reproduced. Theres less grasp of the space. Its as though the music were projected on the surface of bubbles. Soap bubbles? suggested Gerard. Well, bubbles. The conclusion? We started out thinking this Cambridge box was a terric bargain, and nothing happened to shake our condence. Waiting for the future The f iles from bot h Reference recordings and Fidelio are in WAV format, which any computer can read. Tomorrows computers will be able to supply DACs like the Audiomat with full 192 kHz or 176.4 kHz resolution. By then, faster and denser chips will allow players to handle these DVD-Rs directly. But were not sure thats the future. Even many audiophiles are transferring their music to their hard drives. Can you expect them to do otherwise with high-resolution music? As computers become more capable, we will no doubt then notice new differences in optical transducers and even computer power supplies. Tweakers and modders will see ever newer opportunities in the quest for better sound. But the sound is already pretty good. Enjoy! ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 29

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Listening Room Reference 3A Episode

he bra nd is not ex ac t ly unknown to us, since for over a dozen years the speakers in our Omega reference system have been Reference 3A Suprema IIs. Originally Swiss, with French roots, Reference 3A was founded by Daniel Dehay, but was purchased over a decade ago by Canadas Divergent Technologies, which continues to draw

from the deep well left by Dehay. We have had several occasions to review the companys creations since, mostly with enthusiasm. One of the really good ones, though by no means the only one was the Royal Virtuoso (UHF No.70). This oversized two-way speaker with the Corian sides was, essentially, just like the top part of our Supremas. It is no longer made, but the Episode is a reboot of the Royal Virtuoso, now a oorstanding speaker, with a third driver. The tiny gold tweeter is actually a muRata super tweeter. By coincidence, we are using a freestanding muRata pair on our Supremas. Though Reference 3A is now a Canadian company, several aspects of the original designs can be found in the Episodes. First, look at the woofer diaphragm. We hesitate to call it a cone, because its shape is not at all that of the usual truncated cone. This one has a shape that Reference 3A calls hyper elliptical, and it is of course made from woven carbon bre. The front is dramatically tilted, partly to keep the wavefronts f r om t he d r i ver s in step, and partly to m i n im ize t he s t a nd i n g w a v e s that are a problem with rectang ular enclosures. The crossover is reduced to the strict

minimum, essentially Mundorf silver capacitors there to protect the two tweeters from low-frequency energy. Ot her materials include Bybee Quantum Puriers (Google it and be amazed!), AVM (Anti Vibration Magic) uid, and Van den Hul cabling. The four binding posts, which are nameless but seem to work well mechanically, are mounted on a massive aluminum plate. Grilles are included, and if you need to use them, wellthen you do. We decided to make this an allanalog session, as we sometimes do, and so we pulled out some familiar and less familiar recordings of different genres, though the rst and last are of music we always use in loudspeaker evaluations. The rst is the long-discontinued Center Stage from Wilson Audio, whose Olympic Fanfare (composed for the 84 Summer Games in L.A.) has some rolling drum work that seems to give many a speaker serious trouble. We also used it to determine whether we would be happy with the initial placement of the Episodes: a little ahead of where our Supremas sound best. We had placed them just enough ahead that the centre of the woofer was just where the front of our Supremas woofer had been. A rst listen convinced us that no adjustment was going to be necessary. Thus reassured, we played the Fanfare again, notepads in hand. The overall sound was well-balanced, and indeed was not unlike that of our own speakers. You recognize the family sound, said Albert. Theres the same avor, the same midrange richness, the same definition in the brass and the woodwinds, the same articulation. He thought that the central image was fuller as well. But what about those rolling tympani? On poorly-damped speakers they become an undefined mass of sound, quite unlike the sound of a real percussion instrument. The Episodes kept them in check, which is quite an achievement for any tuned reex speaker. But of course they couldnt match the tremendous impact of our own speakers

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push-pull subwoofers, which come into play below 50Hz. There lay the difference. With the reference I could feel the impact in my bones, my chest, my legs, said Steve. Other than that, the brass is a little brighter, and more brash, and the 3-D effect isnt as striking. We had a second wind band piece in t he lineup, t he medley from A Chorus Line from Frederick Fennells Beachcomber double album (Reference Recordings RR-62). Keith O. Johnson put a lot into its grooves, and listening to it is a thrilling experienceif, of course, the playback equipment, from phono cartridge to speaker, is up to the task. Once again there were important differences in performance between our reference and the Episodes, but the Episodes handled this difcult music so deftly that we spent little time concentrating on any shortcomings. The lively energy of the music came through, and it was easy to conclude that liveliness is the dening characteristic of these speakers, as it is for other Reference 3As. We were by now convinced that the engineers had done what was necessary to keep the cabinet rigid, because transients were quick and sharp, the rhythm unstoppable. Steve, who had expressed reservations with the rst recording, was coming around. The sound stage is not as wide and owing, he said. The Supremas ll every square centimetre with music. But the more I listen, the less difference I hear. We continued with Israeli singer Esther Ofarim, singing the French traditional song Rataplan, from her original album of some years back (ATR 001). This is not quite a natural recording, but its always impressive, with Esthers voice clear and powerful, with the accompanying orchestra lling the broad space. You want dynamics? Shes got them! The Episodes reproduced this difcult recording amazingly well. Indeed, the words (based on an old legend of a king who covets a noblemans wife) were actually even clearer than with our own speakers, though this feat was accomplished without adding extra brightness. There was a little less throat sound in Esthers voice, but both Steve and Albert noticed the great transparency of the

sound. All three of us were pleased with the way this session was unfolding. We had a second female voice, recorded rather more naturally, that of Jennifer Warnes singing Leonard Cohens Famous Blue Raincoat, this from the 45rpm multidisc re-release. Properly played, this song reinvented by Warnes and Cohen for a female singer, is a constantly renewable emotional experience. We were quite sure the Episodes wouldnt let us down, and they didnt. This is an intimate recording, without the challenge of extremes, in either bandwidth or dynamics. Rather, its impact depends on the subtle emotions of Jennifer Warnes performance, and of course the poetry of Leonard Cohen. The overall sound was perhaps a little less intimate, but the voice remained gorgeous and expressive. Albert preferred the rich sound of the saxophone with our reference speakers, but he praised the Episodes for, once again,

Summing it up
Brand/model: Reference 3A Episode Price: C$5500 or US$5500 in standard finishes, slightly more for some finishes Size (HWD): 117 x 27 x 37cm Sensitivity: 91 dB Impedance: 8 ohms Most liked: Nearly perfect balance, quick liveliness Least liked: One more octave wouldnt be unwelcome Verdict: Promises a lot, delivers

their effortless transparency. Steve agreed. Her voice is singing with the instruments, not just next to them. Our next selection was the title tune from a nearly forgotten LP from Jos Feliciano, Angela (Private Stock PS 2010). Feliciano, you may or may not recall, was known in the 70s for his free-form version of Light My Fire. This can be a diff icult song to reproduce, but the Episodes did the job nearly perfectly. Theres an odd introduction to the song, said Albert. You can really here those little bells right at the beginning. We could also hear the woody resonance of the guitar, not just Felicianos nger on the strings. By this time comparisons were getting difcult to make, because we were so caught up in the rhythm and texture of the guitar, the violins, the percussion, and Felicianos unique voice. It worked wonderfully well. Colors in nature are always harmonious, said Steve, and this is very much a harmonious presentation. We had one recording left, one we always use to end loudspeaker reviews. Secret of the Andes is an exceptional jazz album (originally on the Nautilus label, later re-released as a JVC xrcd), but the title piece is notable for an extended sequence featuring a large variety of Central American instruments, and especially percussion instruments. Most speakers we review do at least adequately on this piece, but thats only because we try to avoid reviewing obvious duds. The sequence is a trap. The drums are wood, metal or stretched skin, and a poorlyULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 31

Room Listening Feedback

damped loudspeaker cabinet will cover their distinctive timbres with their own homogenous resonance, making them all sound the same. Of course the Episodes got through this sequence well. The little Andean harp that opens and closes the piece was particularly well articulated. The drums seemed lighter than with our larger Supremas, but the difference was apparent for only a few seconds, and it was then easy to accept their sound as being right. The more conventional jazz portion was very good too, with Victor Feldmans lively piano particularly enjoyable.

The cymbals were a model of nesse. I think I heard the contribution of those super tweeters, said Steve. These really are the younger brothers of our reference speakers. Once we had (reluctantly) nished with the listening, we set up our calibrated microphone a metre in front of the main tweeter. The 100 Hz square wave, shown on the previous page, conrmed the quickness of the speakers, though it showed some phase problems related to the tilt of the cabinet front (the drivers are set up to meld together at a greater distance, not at one metre). Frequency response, measured by

averaging third-of-octave warble tones, is shown above left. Save for that unexpected sag at 10 kHz, it is very good. The 40 Hz sag is a room effect, not a shortcoming of the speaker. We were actually pleased to see the bottom-end response drop so sharply, because speakers that try to reproduce low frequencies they cant make sense of color the music horribly. Note the nearly undistorted sound wave above right: its 32Hz at full reference level! The graph doesnt indicate the contribution of the super tweeter, but our microphone wasnt in line with it. No matter how well a loudspeaker may do certain things, the key to satisfying performance is balance: nothing exaggerated, nothing in excess. On that scale, the Reference 3A Episode succeeds admirably. It is extreme in only one aspect, and that is liveliness. Dont count on us to complain.

CROSSTALK
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As you probably know, most of the music lives in the midrange, and these speakers provide a superbly-rich dwelling for it. It almost felt as though a solid, yet transparent, wall of sound were created in front of me. But there was also the depth of a stage and the precise effect of spotlights on each performer. Did I say the music was lively? It was bursting with joy when called for, and smooth as a lake at sunset during those bittersweet moments. I also experienced an unmistakable sense of balance as I listened to one piece after another. Things were not perfect (they never really are), but I knew they made sense, they held together well, they let me relax and get fully involved with the music. I knew that these speakers couldnt reproduce the bass foundation as impressively as our reference speakers, but I found myself accepting that readily, as if the performers were playing in a much larger hall. Too bad each selection had become so short! Albert Simon Shopping for perfection is always more than a little stressful. Trying to nd a bargain at the same time adds to the challenge. Then theres your partner to please, unless pleasing yourself is your only goal. This speaker could help solve all of those issues. Its playing instantly brought back a clear sonic memory of the UHF reference, its larger and more costly relative. A rich and pure harmonic balance, an enormously broad-in-the-beam sound stage, entirely authentic instrument timbres. And it is seriously better looking. Slim and elegant, its very easy on the eyes. Any one of the trio of nishes offered will t nicely into most every musical pleasure dome. The Episode moves the Reference 3A family of speakers forward, its tradition maintained. Steve Bourke Sometimes the basic rightness of an audio product, but especially a loudspeaker, strikes you to the point where you pay no attention to the technical aspects of its execution. At that moment I know Im on well-trod ground here its all about the music. That was also my impression the very rst time I heard Daniel Dehays original 3A speakers nearly two decades ago. Same thing here. Put music into these speakers, and what comes out is a living thing. Gerard Rejskind

32 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

Back Issues
THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION: Issues No.7-19 (except 11, 15, 17 and 18, out of print): nine issues available for the price of five (see below). A piece of audio history. Available separately at the regular price. No. 87: Digital: We review the April Music Eximus CD player, and we plug things into its digital inputs. We also try to get great sound from the increasingly popular Apple Airport Express. Analog: We listen to the Audiomat Phono-1.6, successor to our reference phono preamp, and a hand-wound step-up transformer from Allnic. Plus: A lovely little tube amp from Audio Space, the Pioneer BDP-11FD Blu-ray player, and a feature article on good sound in bad times. No.86: Analog: We review the Scheu Analogue Premier II turntable and Cantus arm, and we try two phono preamps: the Allnic H-1200 and the Moon LP3. Also: We continue our investigation of speaker connectors by putting WBT nextgens on our reference cable, we listen to Beats headphones, as well as the Shure SE530 and SE420 phones. We also put the Zoom H2 palm-sized digital recorder through a tough test. Plus: color space in home theatre, Paul Bergman on analog in a digital world. No.85: Integrated amplifiers: the luxurious Sugden A21SE and the affordable Vecteur Ai4. We evaluate Eichmanns new Quiessence cables, and chat with Keith Eichmann himself. We listen to a very good mid-priced speaker cable with four different connectors, and the results leave us stunned. Plus: We choose (and evaluate in depth) a new HDTV reference monitor, Paul Bergman winds up his series on acoustics, and we tell you how to transfer music to hard drive without saying youre sorry. No.84: Digital streaming: the awesome Linn Klimax DS and the Off-Ramp Turbo 2 interface. Also: the classic Harbeth HL5 speaker, the affordable Moon CD-1 and i-1 amplifier, and a great phono stage from Aurum. Plus: UHF chats with Linns Gilad Tiefenbrun and Harbeths Alan Shaw, Paul Bergman discusses signals for acoustic measurement, and we look at the prospects for 3-Dat home and in the cinema. No.83: Digital: The Raysonic CD128 and a lowcost player from VisionQuest. Other reviews: The Moon LP5.3 phono stage, the Castle Richmond 7i speaker, the upscale Mavros cables from Atlas, and a retest of the Power Foundation III line filter, with a better power cord this time. Plus: The acoustics of speaker placement, the two meanings of video image contrast, and a portrait of super tenor Placido Domingo. No.82: Amplifiers: A large sweet tube amplifier from Audio Space, the Reference 3.1, and the reincarnation of an old favorite, the Sugden A21. Digital: Bryston's first CD player, and the Blue Circle "Thingee," with USB at one end and lots of outputs at the other end. Plus: the BC Acoustique A3 speaker, a small subwoofer, two more London phono cartridges, line filters from AudioPrism and BIS, a blind test of three interconnects, Paul Bergman on soundproofing, and a thorough test of Sony's new-generation Blu-ray player No.81: Digital: The newest two-box CD player from Reimyo, and the magical Linn Majik player. Headphones a new version of our long time reference headphones, from the Koss pro division, and the affordable SR-125 headphones from Grado. Plus: The astonishing Sonogram loudspeakers from Gershman, a small but lovely tube integrated amplifier from CEC, and the London Reference phono cartridge. No.80: Equipment reviews: From Linn, the Artikulat 350A active speakers, the updated LP12 turntable, the Klimax Kontrol preamplifier, and the Linto phono stage; ASW Genius 300 speakers, ModWright preamp and phono stage. Also: Bergman on absorbing low frequencies, emerging technologies for home theatre, and coverage of the Montreal Festival. No.79: Digital players: Simaudios flagship DVD (and CD) player, the Calypso, and Creeks surprising economy EVO player. Phono stages: A slick tube unit from Marchand, and the superb Sonneteer Sedley, with USB input and output. Plus: the talented JAS Oscar loudspeakers, the Squeezebox plus our own monster power supply. Also: Bergman on what absorbs sound and what doesnt, whats next in home theatre, Vegas 2007, and the secrets of the harmonica. No.78: Integrated amplifiers: the affordable Creek EVO, and the (also affordable) Audio Space AS-3i. Loudspeaker cables: six of them from Atlas and Actinote, in a blind test. Plus: the astonishing Aurum Acoustics Integris 300B complete system, and its optional CD player/ preamplifier. Whew! Also: Bergman on taming reverberation, how to put seven hours of uncompressed music on just one disc, and the one opera that even non-opera people know. No.77: Electronics: The Simaudio Moon P-8 preamplifier, the successor to the legendary Bryston 2B power amp, the Antique Sound Lab Lux DT phono stage. Plus: the Reimyo DAP-777 converter, an affordable CD player/integrated amp pair from CEC, and five power cords. Also: Paul Bergman on room size and acoustics, how to dezone foreign DVDs, and how to make your own 24/96 high resolution discs at home. No.76: Loudspeakers: a new look at the modern version of the Totem Mani-2, an affordable ELAC speaker with a Heil tweeter, and the even more affordable Castle Richmond 3i. Plus headphone amps from Lehmann, CEC and Benchmark, a charger that can do all your portables, and the Squeezebox 3, which gets true hi-fi music from your computer to your stereo system. Bergman on speaker impedance and how to measure it. No.75: Amplifiers: The new Simaudio Moon W-8 flagship, and integrated amps from Copland (the CTA-405) and CEC. Speakers: the Reference 3a Veena and the Energy Reference Connoisseur reborn. Plus the Benchmark DAC converter. And also: Bergman on the changing concept of hi-fi and stereo, a chat with FIMs Winston Ma, and the rediscovery of a great Baroque composer, Christoph Graupner. No.74: Amplifiers: Mimetism 15.2, Qinpu A-8000, Raysonic SP-100, Cyrus 8vs and Rogue Stereo 90. More reviews: Atlantis Argentera speaker, Cyrus CD8X player, GutWire MaxCon 2 line filter, Harmony remote, Music Studio10 record ing software. Cables: Atlas, Stager, BIS and DNM, including a look at how length affects digital cables. Plus: the (hi-fi) digital jukebox, why HDTV doesnt always mean what you think, and Reine Lessard on The Man Who Invented RocknRoll. No.73: Integrated amplifiers: Audiomat Rcital and Exposure 2010S. Analog: Turntables from Roksan (Radius 5) and Goldring (the Rega-designed GR2), plus two cartridges, and four phono stages from CEC, Marchand and Goldring. The Harmonix Reimyo CD player, Audiomat Maestro DAC, ASW Genius 400 speakers, and the Sonneteer BardOne wireless system. Plus: Paul Bergman on the making of an LP and why they dont all sound the same. No.72: Music from data: We look at ways you can make your own audiophile CDs with equipment you already have, and we test a DAC that yields hi-fi from your computer. We review the new Audio Reference speakers, the updated Connoisseur single-ended tube amp, upscale Actinote cables, and Gershmans Acoustic Art panels. How to tune up your system for an inexpensive performance boost. And much more. No.71: Small speaker: Reference 3a Dulcet, Totem Rainmaker, and a low cost speaker from France. A blind cable test: five cables from Atlas, and a Wireworld cable with different connectors (Eichmann, WBT nextgen, and Wireworld). The McCormack UDP-1 universal player, muRata super tweeters, Simaudio I-3 amp and Equinox CD player. Paul Bergman examines differences behind two-channel stereo and multichannel. No.70: How SACD won the waror how DVD-A blew it. Reviews: Linn Unidisk 1.1 universal player and Shanling SCD-T200 player. Speakers: Reference 3a Royal Virtuoso, Equation 25, Wilson Benesch Curve. Other reviews: Simaudio W-5LE amp, the iPod as an audiophile source. Plus: future video screens, and the eternal music of George Gershwin No.69: Tube Electronics: Audiomat Opra , Connoisseur SE-2 and Copland CSA29 integrated amps, and Shanling SP-80 monoblocks. Audiomat's Phono1.5, Creek CD50, GutWire's NotePad and a music-related computer game that made us laugh out loud. Paul Bergman on the return of the tube, and how music critics did their best to kill the worlds greatest music. No.68: Loudspeakers: Thiel CS2.4, Focus Audio FS688, Iliad B1. Electronics:Vecteur I-6.2 and Audiomat Arpge integrated amplifiers, Copland 306 multichannel tube preamp, Rega Fono MC. Also: Audio Note and Copland CD players, GutWire MaxCon power filter. And theres more: all about power supplies, whats coming beyond DVD, and a chat with YBAs Yves-Bernard Andr. No.67: Loudspeakers: An improved Reference 3a MM de Capo, and the Living Voice Avatar OBX-R. Centre speakers from Castle, JMLab, ProAc, Thiel, Totem and Vandersteen. One of them joins our Kappa system. Two multichannel amps from Copland and Vecteur. Plus: plans for a DIY platform for placing a centre speaker atop any TV set, Paul Bergman on the elements of acoustics, and women in country music. No.66: Reviews: the Jadis DA-30 amplifier, the Copland 305 tube preamp and 520 solid state amp. Plus: the amazing Shanling CD player, Castle Stirling speakers, and a remote control that tells you what to watch. Also: Bergman on biwiring and biamplification, singer Janis Ians alternative take on music downloading, and a chat with Opus 3s Jan-Eric Persson. No.65: Back to Vinyl: setting up an analog system, reviews of Rega P9 turntable, and phono preamps from Rega, Musical Fidelity and Lehmann. The Kappa reference system for home theatre: choosing our HDTV monitor, plus a review of the Moon Stellar DVD player. Antivibration: Atacama, Symposium, Golden Sound, Solid-Tech, Audioprism, Tenderfeet. Plus an interview with Regas turntable designer,. No.64: Speakers: Totem M1 Signature and Hawk, Visonik E352. YBA Passion Intgr amp, Cambridge IsoMagic (followup), better batteries for audio-to-go. Plus: the truth about upsampling, an improvement to our LP cleaning machine, an interview with Ray Kimber. No.63: Tube amps: ASL Leyla & Passion A11. Vecteur Espace speakers, 2 interconnects (Harmonic Technology Eichmann), 5 speaker cables (Pierre Gabriel, vdH , Harmonic Technology, Eichmann), 4 power cords (Wireworld, Harmonic Technology, Eichmann, ESP). Plus: Paul Bergman on soundproof ing, c ompar ing c omponents in the store, big-screen TVs to stay away from, a look back at the Beatles revolution. No.62: Amplifiers: Vecteur I-4, Musical Fidelity Nu-Vista M3, Antique Sound Lab MG-S11DT. Passive preamps: Creek and Antique Sound Lab. Vecteur L-4 CD player. Interconnects: VdH Integration, Wireworld Soltice. Plus: the right to copy music, for now. Choosing a DVD player by features. And all about music for the movies. No.61: Digital: Audiomat Tempo and Cambridge Isomagic DACs, Vecteur D-2 transport. Speakers: Osborn Mini Tower and Mirage OM-9. Soundcare Superspikes. And: new surround formats, dezoning DVD players. No.60: Speakers: Monitor Audio Silver 9, Reference 3a MM De Capo, Klipsch RB-5, Coincident Triumph Signature. Plus: a Mirage subwoofer and the Audiomat Solfge amp. Paul Bergman on reproducing extreme lows. No.59: CD players: Moon Eclipse, Linn Ikemi and Genki, Rega Jupiter/Io, Cambridge D500. Plus: Oskar Kithara speaker, with Heil tweeter. And: transferring LP to CD, the truth on digital radio, digital cinema vs MaxiVision 48. No.58: Amplifiers: ASL AQ1003, Passion I10 & I11, Rogue 88, Jadis Orchestra Reference, Linar 250. Headphone amps: Creek, Antique Sound Lab, NVA, Audio Valve. Plus: Foundation Research LC-2 line filter, Gutwire power cord, Pierre Gabriel ML-1 2000 cable. And: building your own machine to clean LPs. No.57: Speakers: Dynaudio Contour 1.3, Gershman X-1/SW-1, Coincident Super Triumph Signature, Castle Inversion 15, Oskar Aulos. PLUS: KR 18 tube amp. Music Revolution: the next 5 years. Give your Hi-Fi a Fall Tune-Up. No.56: Integrated amps: Simaudio I-5, Roksan Caspian, Myryad MI120, Vecteur Club 10, NVA AP10 Also: Cambridge T500 tuner, Totem Forest. Phono stages: Creek, Lehmann, Audiomat. Interconnects: Actinote, Van den Hul, Pierre Gabriel. Plus: Paul Bergman on power and currentwhy you need both

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No.55: CD players: Linn CD12, Copland CDA-289, Roksan Caspian, AMC CD8a. Other reviews: Enigma Oremus speaker, Magenta ADE-24 black box. Plus: the DSD challenge for the next audio disc, pirate music on the Net, the explosion of off-air video choices. No.54: Electronics: Creek A52se, Simaudio W-3 and W-5 amps. Copland CSA-303, Sima P-400 and F.T. Audio preamps (two of them passive). Musical Fidelity X-DAC revisited, Ergo AMT phones, 4 line filters, 2 interconnects.. No.53: Loudspeakers:Reference 3a Intgrale, Energy Veritas v2.8, Epos ES30, Totem Shaman, Mirage 390is, Castle Eden. Bergman on biamping, biwiring, balanced lines, and more. No.52: CD players: Alchemist Nexus, Cambridge CD6, YBA Intgr, Musical Fidelity X-DAC, Assemblage DAC-2. Subwoofers: Energy ES-8 and NHT PS-8. Plus: Paul Bergman on reproducing deep bass, and behind digital television. SEE MORE AT: http://www.uhfmag.com/IndividualIssue.html

EACH ISSUE costs $6.49 (in Canada) plus tax (13% in Qubec, NB, NS and NF, 5% in other Provinces), US$7.69 in the USA, CAN$10.75 elsewhere (air mail included). Higher HST tax will apply in Ontario and BC on July 1, 2010. THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION (issues 7-19 except 11, 15, 17 and 18) includes 9issues but costs like HIGH Magazine 33 5. For VISA or MasterCard, include number, expiry date and signature. UHF Magazine, Box 65085, Place Longueuil,ULTRA Longueuil, Qu., FIDELITY Canada J4K 5J4. Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383, or www.uhfmag.com. Recent back issues are available electronically at www.magzee.com, for C$4.30 each, taxes included.

Room Listening Feedback

Audes Orpheus

hough its t he f irst t ime a speaker from Audes has crossed our threshold, the company is not completely new to us. A large Audes model was featured in our report on CES in 2001 (its on page 27 of UHF No. 61 if you want to look it up). Its prominent ears led us to the natural headline: Your speaker is ready, Batman. All laughing aside, we said it had more than respectable sound. So does the Orpheus, the Estonian companys flagship speaker, and certainly its most luxurious. Audes has decidedly non-hi- origins. In the days of the Soviet Union, it made transformers and cable for the Red Army (well, actually the Soviet

defense ministry). Even before the age of perestroika, it had begun designing and building home entertainment systems under the brand name Estonia, eventually changing its name to the present one. (Audes is a town in the Auvergne region of France, though we doubt thats the reason for the name.) Audes makes small, relatively inexpensive speakers as well, but the Orpheus is the companys agship. Check the ash black burled wood sides (the panels are from Italy), and youll see where some of the money has been spent, but there are lots of luxury touches inside as well: Mundorf capacitors, Cardas binding posts (just one pair, not two), and pointto-point wiring rather than circuit

boards. The tweeter is in a separate vibration-absorbent housing, and so is the crossover. The cabinet is elaborate, with no parallel surfaces to sustain internal standing waves. It is massive, certainly, but it is also narrow, in order to maintain a strong stereo image. For that reason, the 25cm woofer has been mounted on the side. The speakers are to be oriented so that the woofers face each other (and woe to anything that gets in between!). Both the woofer and the midrange drivers are proprietary, though the tweeter is a SEAS Millennium. The midrange driver is very nearly a woofer in its own right, because Audes has placed the crossover point at a low 120 Hz. That places a difcult job on the gurative shoulders of that driver, which needs to handle the ve octaves from 120 to 1,900Hz. They get away with it, as we shall see, and in spectacular fashion too. It offers a major advantage over the usual practice in three-way speakers of having the crossover point right around Middle C. That would mean that, right in the most important part of the music, there would be two dissimilar drivers playing at the same time. This is a reex speaker, with two huge ports at the rear. It is, however, possible to plug up the ports with the massive supplied stoppers. Audes says that may be advantageous for use with tube ampliers. There are no grilles supplied, except for the cloth covering the woofer. The screws holding in the midrange and tweeter are not really hidden, but they are so unobtrusive you barely notice them. The speakers are shipped with rubber feet, as you can see in the picture, but you can (and should) substitute the included spike tips. Our speakers had been shipped more than once around the continent, however, and half our spike tips had been lost. Not wanting to handicap them with rubber feet, we placed them on machined Tenderfoot cones instead. During the break-in period (though they werent factory new, they had not been fully run-in) we were playing music from a remote computer, funnelled through an Airport Express, a Cyrus

34 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

converter and a single-ended tube amplier. We could tell that the Audes were going to deliver on their promise: they sounded smooth, natural and rich, with an almost chocolatey tone. The rest of this article can be found in the complete print or electronic version of UHF No. 84. Order the print issue from www.uhfmag.com/IndividualIssue.html (its case sensitive). Or subscribe at www.uhfmag.com/Subscription.html. The electronic issue is available from www.magzee.com. We now cont inue in im itat ion Latin. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et

volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eum my nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait

vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu facipsusto ea faccums andignis dit illaore do odit ilis dipit do euis eui te feugait niamcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi blamcon utpat verostio et wisi tetueros nos autat lutat prat, commy nullamet adip esto delis dignisl dolorpe rcilis eum eu feu feugiam zzrit utat, con elenisi. Commod dolestrud te te euis alis niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto dit nos accum nummodiam, quamet, sequiscipit accum adiat volorem nos aliquatuerit iusto con velenit ilit luptat. ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 35

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Od tat lor sim nisci tat at ut iril eum vullaor se ex enim dignim digna commodolore commy num veniam dolut wiscipit exercil ut ilis eum non volessim dunt wisl do do commod magniat. Ut wisisim zzrit nonsequatie magnit nos nonsed delenim dolenis adiatem zzrilisit ad doluptat. Quat ip eugait wissenis adipissecte do eu feugait praessit ute veniamc onulla feugueril et lore min essenis nos et amet lore molobor percipit in eniam, vulla coreet, venim eugiate dolore dionseniam nulla conse dip ex exerat, sequat nosto do euisciliqui etum delit nos nonse tem iriureet, secte dolor sum zzriustrud tat, suscips ustrud tie vel dolore modo conse modolortio et nos nit utem zzrit irit pratueros dolorem diat, quipit nonsequate magna facip exer summodion vullaore duis euismod ignibh esting et, vel estrud estrud dipisit inciduis aliquam eum doloborer sed tionsenit lum nos dolore eum niam iustrud euis am euipsum molobore cor at. Duiscilla adigna feugiam vent aliquam alit eu feu facip eu feugait ulputat, volortisisi. Il dignit erostie facidunt atio dolorem iustie magna core duipit wismod modit vel inibh et lore commolo rerosto delesseniat. Eliquis ex eugiam, suscidu ismodoloreet at. Molum zzriurem ad tem ipit aliquat. Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore vulpute feu faci endre dipsuscip el etumsan diametu mmodoloreet lore volore faccummy nulla at velit alit lorperos ad dio dolortin euis am il dolenibh eummy nonullam il et, quipit in ea faccum nos atue dolorerat la feumsandit enisim velis aut velit veros adipsusto odiamet augait iriliquisim velesse quatet alisi exero odolestrud mincipiscing endre doluptat prat, sit adignisl utet accum volor at, quis adit luptat. Ud dolor incipis modigniat 36 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

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acinibh erilla adignim num nim am, commod ea aut essequate ming ea facin velis dolore magna con ulla feugait augiamcore commy nisi. Ommy nim in ea augait, quam dolore consed tetue eu faccum vel utat. Ut aci bla facip et autatis autem dolenim nit, velisl ing el er suscill utpatin henibh ese duis alit, suscil dolesto coreet et vel et nummy nulla adit lorpero odo doluptatie verosting et vel utpat volorem quat adionsent ad molore deliqui psummy nit luptat, venibh erat. Duissi exerat, quis nos nulla feugueros niat, quisl dunt aute te dolor si. Ecte tatisim irit erat er sum iliquat am erit adiam, susci bla faci exerilit at praestrud magnim volore tis aut nim nostio commy nim deliqui sciduis nonsequatue euip ea aut ad eugait, conse ex essi tat, quis num ipit utem dolor sit aci eros dolorperat, volor sum atumsandre magna aut nos at praestie velisl et augait. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer

Summing it up
Brand/model: Audes Orpheus Price: US$16,000 Size (HWD): 116 x 32 x 56cm Sensitivity: 88 dB Impedance: 6 ohms Most liked: Astonishingly refined sound, powerful impact, limpid image Least liked: Difficult to match to some acoustical surroundings Verdict: The looks say luxury. The sound says the same.

suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del

dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eum my nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dion-

sendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu facipsusto ea faccums andignis dit illaore do odit ilis dipit do euis eui te feugait niamcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil

lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi blamcon utpat verostio et wisi tetueros nos autat lutat prat, commy nullamet adip esto delis dignisl dolorpe rcilis eum eu feu feugiam zzrit utat, con elenisi. Commod dolestrud te te euis alis niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto.

CROSSTALK
Well, that was an afternoon well spent. Secret of the Andes just another audiophile test disc, I thought, but oh no, its good music! As a longtime reader, I know UHF likes to use the complex percussion as a speaker test, but the timing, the energy and invention in the piano part was a revelation with the big Audes speakers. They gave me music when I wasnt expecting it. They also provided insight into the art of Jennifer Warnes. Ive heard Famous Blue Raincoat many times and thought I knew it all, but again, no. Warnes uses her sweet voice to express bitterness only just held back, and it touched me more subtly than ever. Was there something the reference did better? Sure, the weight and impact of the lower bass for one thing. On the other hand I preferred the speed and slight warmth of the Orpheus midrange. Even at this level there are considerable differences among speakers. If youre looking for gear this good, youll know youve found your speaker when you hear it and cant forget it. Put the Orpheus on your list and be ready for an audition that stretches on and on Toby Earp The listening session left me a little unsatised, not because I was in any way displeased with what I heard, but on the contrary, because it would have taken much, much longer to really savor what these loudspeakers can do. Beyond the sound they give this artist or that instrument, these loudspeakers ooze renement. Their sound is complex, as real music is, and it invites closer listening. There may be more to your recordings than you had suspected, and these are the speakers that can let you hear it. I heard them extensively before the review session, while they were being broken in. Countless times, I was off doing something else, and they drew me in from the other room. Yes, theyre acoustically challenging, and they will require serious work to make them sound their best. But the potential rewards are great, because the Audes Orpheus are reference-quality loudspeakers. Gerard Rejskind These speakers do a ton of things just right. They let me enjoy some aspects of the music I tended to disregard and brought to my attention some elements that I had not suspected such as the personal way in which an artist utters some lyrics. And theyre lightning fast too. So why was I not relaxed during and after the listening tests? You know what I mean. When something sounds so good, your brain eases its intense focus, letting the music ow freely and you can almost feel your features soften. Why did it not happen? I suspect it had to do with what was missing. And no, I cant be more specic because it wasnt always missing. Sometimes what I heard was so good that I noticed only later that something else was absent. I can hear you say Gee, why cant this guy spell it out? I know how you feel. On edge, arent you? Thats how I felt too. Albert Simon

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ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 37

The Four-Box Cyrus CD Player

byte out of place and the program wont run so what could be better? The y in the ointment (and the awin the reasoning): computers dont have to read data in real time. But technology has advanced, and a technique that was once premature, to say the least, may have seen its time nally arrive. The major advance has been the availability of large memory chips that can be used as a buffer for the music data so that it need not be read directly from the physical disc. Computer audio already works this way, and so do iPods. The mechanism retrieves the data and loads it into computer memory, a process that can be done perfectly, just the way data is retrieved from software discs. The actual playback is done from the data in the buffer, which doesnt suffer from the problems associated with the often-shoddy mechanical parts of the drive. Today, a memory chip with capacity for the entire contents of a Compact Disc (0.7GB) costs nearly nothing, and indeed it is difficult to find one that small. Sois Cyrus actually using a computer-grade drive in its transport? Well, its a slot-loader, so you gure it out. If that truly is the case, the electronic part of the transport, the one without moving parts, is where the technical cleverness lies. Some of the passages from the Cyrus literature would need Dan Brown to decode them, but the main claim is that the transport has been engineered to retrieve data from an audio CD with the fewest errors and to provide much better quality audio than has been possible with conventional drives. No objections from us. The XtSE has a very good backlit LCD screen, though as usual we wish it were large enough to be readable from across the room. It can be programmed in various ways, for instance to remember to skip the song that was her favorite before she walked out on you. There are coaxial and optical outputs, but no AES/EBU balanced jack, and

h atever happened to two-box CD players? They succumbed to a new fashion: the singlebox player, and for good technical reasons: breaking the player down into two different chassis held together by an expensive digital cable wasnt heads-up engineering. Today, however, even hard core audiophiles are moving their digital music onto the hard drives of their computers, and theyre doing much of their listening that way. They wish they could use the expensive digital-to-analog converters of their CD players for more than playing CDs. With a two-box player you can. Buter, this is a four-box player. Let us introduce you to the cast of characters. At top right is the XtSE transport. No, there isnt a CD drawer. This is a slot-loading drive, like the one in your car and perhaps your computer. More on this in a moment. At top left is the digital-to-analog converter, the DACX. The knob is not a volume control but a selector for setup. A version with built-in preamp does exist, however. The two units at the bottom are PSX-R power supplies. They are optional, and can be considered an add-on, which you can buy right away, or when your credit card comes out of intensive care. Cyrus and Mission before that has long offered add-on power blocks. The same PSX-R can be used with Cyrus ampliers as well. 38 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

We should mention that you can get these goodies in a single-box player, the CD8SE (C$2399), to which you can also add a PSX-R. However we wanted to try the Cyrus technology with computer sources, and that is why we asked for the separates. We did in fact use the DACX in evaluating Reference Recordings remarkable HRx recordings (see Hi-Res Music on DVD-R in this issue). Now lets get a closer look. The XtSE Compact Disc transport Very few high end manufacturers can afford the huge development costs of an original Compact Disc transport mechanism. With few exceptions, therefore, they buy off-the-shelf transports, which may be from Sony or Pioneer, but are nearly always from Philips. That companys products are chosen because they offer certain advantages, to be sure, but if you want to see steam coming out of a manufacturers ears, ask him what his dealings with Philips are like. (Actually the dealings are with a third party, because Philips is a big company and doesnt talk to leprechauns.) And since models change frequently, some buyers of expensive players get left high and dry. Ask us what happened to our original $9000 Moon DVD player! On second thought, who needs the aggravation? So whats the alternative? In the past weve seen designers take the economy road, and buy computergrade drives. The rationale: computers have zero tolerance for errors one

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another pair of jacks for connecting to the proprietary Cyrus MC Bus control system. There is of course a ve-pin XLR jack for the optional power supply. The supplied remote is large and made from silvery plastic. Most of its buttons are for other products, including Cyrus ampliers and home theatre surround sound systems. The DAC X converter The presence of a knob on the front of the converter had us fooled, especially since the analog output jacks are labelled as a xed output. Were the two jacks adjacent actually a variable output? Was this converter actually a six-input digital preamplier? That sounded rather exciting. But no, the second pair of jacks is for the same MC Bus, for integration with other Cyrus products. The knob is for selecting names for the inputs so that theyre not merely called Input 1, Input2, etc. (you choose from a list, you cant call an input Molly). However Cyrus actually does have a version with a built in preamp, the DAC XP, for about $2000 more. The preamp module is even available as an upgrade, though we dont see that option on the price list. There are plenty of jacks at the rear, apart those already mentioned. The rst two inputs are optical, the next four coaxial. There are three pairs of analog outputs, one of them coaxial, two others balanced. Finally there is an optical digital output for whatever outboard gear your system may include. The DAC X has a backlit LCD screen like that of the transport. It shows the input selected (by name, if youve assigned one to it), and also the sampling rate of the incoming signal. In an age of varied audio resolutions, we wish all converters had that. The PSX-R power blocks These are versatile add-ons, which can be used with pretty much anything Cyrus makes. We know the importance of a robust power source, and we have had occasion to use a PSX-R supply with a Cyrus amplier. Does it make a difference? As Sarah Palin would say, you betcha. When it comes to that, we recall using a similar add-on power block with

an amplier from the Cyrus ancestor, Mission. The PSX-R has no controls of its own beyond a front-panel power button. It has a captive 55cm power cord with a female ve-pin XLR connector. One clever detail: if you turn off the product it is plugged into, the PSX-R will go into standby mode, and its green LED will glow orange. W hen it is used with the XtSE transport, it takes over the powering of the motors, leaving the transports own power supply to take care of the electronics. That division of labor means the product being helped by a PSX-R still needs its own power cord. And that means our four-box player needed four power cords! As usual, we dont handicap products we test by using the cheap molded cords supplied. We used four of our own shielded cords, plugged them into a GutWire StingRay hospital-grade power bar, and plugged the power bar into our power line lter. We strongly recommend that anyone buying these components do likewise. Getting down to listening By t he t ime we were ready for this session, we had already heard the DAC X, since it was one of the three converters we used in the evaluation of the Reference Recordings HRx DVDs. It had done well, without quite the ultimate renement of the more expensive Audiomat Tempo 2.6 converter we had borrowed, but it had brought to the table added dynamic tension, seemingly resulting from its PSX-R power supply. We did most of our listening with the PSX-Rs in place, comparing only at the end. The digital cable linking the transport and converter was an Atlas Opus, in the usual 1.5m length. We found putting a CD into the narrow slot initially unnerving, as if we should fear that it wouldnt give it back. In reality, of course, a conventional drawer can just as easily jam, and it was merely a question of getting accustomed to it. We began the session with our long-time choral favorite, Now the Green Blade Riseth (the Red Book CD version, of course, Proprius PRCD9093). This wonderful recording is astonishingly

lifelike, but it falls apart completely if theres anything wrong in the playback. Well, that certainly didnt happen, but there was a certain alteration of texture, and all three of us noticed it. What was it? Its gorgeous, theres lots of detail and the individual choral voices are well dened, said Albert, but theres a price to be paid. The singers sound good, but their voices dont ow. I wont go so far as to say that the sound is grainy, but the texture isnt the same. Steve agreed, even nding a subtle touch of harshness in the voices. Said Gerard, Its pretty good, and its even smoothsounding, but The rest of this article can be found in the complete print or electronic version of UHF No. 84. Order the print issue from www.uhfmag.com/IndividualIssue.html (its case sensitive). Or subscribe at www.uhfmag.com/Subscription.html. The electronic issue is available from www.magzee.com. We now cont inue in im itat ion Latin. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 39

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quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eum my nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl 40 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

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dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu facipsusto ea faccums andignis dit illaore do odit ilis dipit do euis eui te feugait niamcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od

Summing it up
Brand/model: Cyrus XtSE, DACX and PSX-R Price: C$1,999 (transport), C$2599 (DAC), $1050 (PSX-R) Price as tested: C$6698, equivalent to about US$6296 Size (WDH): 21.2 x 34.8 x 7cm, each unit Most liked: Tight, smooth performance, especially with the PSX-R blocks Least liked: Occasional alteration of natural textures Verdict: A great CD playback system, with plenty of provision for the future

exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi blamcon utpat verostio et wisi tetueros nos autat lutat prat, commy nullamet adip esto delis dignisl dolorpe rcilis eum eu feu feugiam zzrit utat, con elenisi. Commod dolestrud te te euis alis niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto dit nos accum nummodiam, quamet, sequiscipit accum adiat volorem nos aliquatuerit iusto con velenit ilit luptat. Od tat lor sim nisci tat at ut iril eum vullaor se ex enim dignim digna commodolore commy num veniam dolut wiscipit exercil ut ilis eum non volessim dunt wisl do do commod magniat. Ut wisisim zzrit nonsequatie magnit nos nonsed delenim dolenis adiatem zzrilisit ad doluptat. Quat ip eugait wissenis adipissecte do eu feugait praessit ute veniamc onulla feugueril et lore min essenis nos et amet lore molobor percipit in eniam, vulla coreet, venim eugiate dolore dionseniam nulla conse dip ex exerat, sequat nosto do euisciliqui etum delit nos nonse tem iriureet, secte dolor sum zzriustrud tat, suscips ustrud tie vel dolore modo conse modolortio et nos nit utem zzrit irit pratueros dolorem diat, quipit nonsequate magna facip exer summodion vullaore duis euismod ignibh esting et, vel estrud estrud dipisit inciduis aliquam eum doloborer sed tionsenit lum nos dolore eum niam iustrud euis am euipsum molobore cor at. Duiscilla adigna feugiam vent aliquam alit eu feu facip eu feugait ulputat, volortisisi. Il dignit erostie facidunt atio dolorem iustie magna core duipit wismod modit vel inibh et lore commolo rerosto delesseniat. Eliquis ex eugiam, suscidu ismodoloreet at. Molum zzriurem ad tem ipit aliquat. Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore vulpute feu faci endre dipsuscip el etumsan diametu mmodoloreet lore volore faccummy nulla at velit alit lorperos ad dio dolortin euis am il dolenibh eummy nonullam il et, quipit in ea faccum nos atue dolorerat la feumsandit enisim velis aut velit veros adipsusto odiamet augait iriliquisim velesse quatet alisi exero odolestrud mincipiscing endre doluptat prat, sit adignisl utet accum volor at, quis adit luptat. Ud dolor incipis modigniat

acinibh erilla adignim num nim am, commod ea aut essequate ming ea facin velis dolore magna con ulla feugait augiamcore commy nisi. Ommy nim in ea augait, quam dolore consed tetue eu faccum vel utat. Ut aci bla facip et autatis autem dolenim nit, velisl ing el er suscill utpatin henibh ese duis alit, suscil dolesto coreet et vel et nummy nulla adit lorpero odo doluptatie verosting et vel utpat volorem quat adionsent ad molore deliqui psummy nit luptat, venibh erat. Duissi exerat, quis nos nulla feugueros niat, quisl dunt aute te dolor si. Ecte tatisim irit erat er sum iliquat am erit adiam, susci bla faci exerilit at praestrud magnim volore tis aut nim nostio commy nim deliqui sciduis nonsequatue euip ea aut ad eugait, conse ex essi tat, quis num ipit utem dolor sit aci eros dolorperat, volor sum atumsandre magna aut nos at praestie velisl et augait. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore

facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio

commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam.

CROSSTALK
Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum vulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eummy nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu.

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ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 41

Cambridge DACMagic

on the strings. Ghostly and synthetic, were the words chosen by Toby. He continued: Some notes need to sound rich, such as the bridge notes between sections, and the music loses a little of its interest if they dont have all of that richness. The pace is still strong, but without all of that wavelike swelling and receding effect. We continued with Plainte damour, an art song by Pauline Viardot-Garcia set to a mazurka by her friend Chopin (sung by Isabel Bayrakdarian, Analekta AN 2 9903). Properly reproduced, it is delicious in its dark tone of sadness and longing. How did the Cambridge do? ambridge is famous for being nient. The power supply is a 12volt wall Midway through I stopped comparing one of the few companies wart, which made Toby Earp wonder because there was no point, said Toby. to bring bearable digital to whether you could hook up a battery to We were able to identify the differwhat even non-audiophiles it. No, because the wall wart puts out AC, ences well enough. In this song, Bayrakwould consider affordable prices. The not DC, but of course a tweaker might darians supple soprano voice sometimes company moved in the upscale direction want to nd a better electrical source. rises in pitch and volume to deliver lovely with its Azur series, but it is still making What country is the DACMagic trills. With the Cambridge those trills an effort to deliver perceived value for made in? Its from an ISO9001 approved were harder, which took away from the money. And this converter ts perfectly facility, says the rear panel cryptically. effortlessness of the performance. The into the tradition. Before we performed this review ending in a minor key with deliberate This is the second time around for we had already listened to it with high- dissonance (the theme here is no longer the DACMagic name. The earlier one resolution computer audio (see Hi-Res love, but death) was less dramatic. But was reviewed in UHF No. 50. A later Music on DV-R in this issue), and we the song did manage to touch me in some version, which was on the cover of issue knew it was at least pretty good. But now spots, said Toby. No. 62, was a combination digital-to- we were going to put it up against one of He had fewer reservations concernanalog converter and anti-vibration our big guns: our Linn Unidisk player. ing Barbra Streisands If You Go Away platform. Its second cable allowed it to We do own a reference transport, a from the second disc of Love is the talk with the matching CD transport, CEC TL-51X, but in order to avoid an Answer. The performance is so intense so they could keep their stories straight. uncontrolled variable we used the Linn that I was taken in from the start, he It then had HDCD decoding, too. Albert itself as the transport for the DACMagic, said. Barbras voice retained its warm, still owns one. connecting the two boxes with an Atlas intimate tone. This new one is totally different, Opus digital cable. There were, however, some unweland it is very nearly unique. Over the We began the listening session with come changes. The You know how most audio magazines do their reviews: a number ofsibilance is not past decade, one-box CD players have one of our favorite violin recordings, really natural anyway, said Gerard, reviewers, some with doubtful reference of systems, are assigned reviews of taken over the market. Now, however, Canadian violinist James Ehnes playing only now it contaminates not only the individual components. a CD transport is just one of the digital Dvoraks Romantic Pieces maintains (Analekta actual FL 2 reference s sounds, but also the sh and f UHF, on the other hand, systems, on which components audiophiles want access to. 3191). With our reference player the tone sounds. The image was weaker, with all reviews are done. All our reviewers participate in each review. The The times they are a-changinback. Ehnes Stradivarius perfectly to the left.on Her voice is still mainof article is based on thewas concensus, ifbalthere Barbra is one, more but sometimes The new DACMagic has updated anced, and the accompaniment by pianist very much present, said Toby approvdivergence. specs, as it must have. It can handle Eduard sparkled like a write stream in ingly, but its less encapsulated theres And then Laurel each reviewer gets to a Crosstalk, a personal comhigh-resolution 24-bit audio, at sampling the sun.may Thats hard act to follow, less of a feeling of a diaphragm, lungs ment, which even a disagree with the others. rates of 32, 44.1, 88.2 or 96kHz. It has commented Toby. to conrm. What you read and torso at work. There is no pressure is really what we two digital inputs (coaxial or optical), Indeed, the UHF Cambridges We continued with a classic jazz think. And that isthough, what makes unique. switchable from the front panel, and version sounded very good, and would no recording, You Look Good to Me, from this is unusual it has a USB input so doubt have been rated highly by anyone the FIM re-release of the Ray Brown you can connect up a computer that has making this sort of comparison. Gerard Trios We Get Requests. Did Browns music les on it. There are both balanced was pleased by the smoothness of the thundering bass have less weight with the and unbalanced analog outputs. Is there violin, with none of the awful screechi- Cambridge? Toby thought so, though anything theyve forgotten? ness of bad digital sources, though he Gerard declared himself pleased with the The box is compact, and a holder lets found it to be more discreet, without considerable bottom end. The swing that you place it on end if thats more conve- the delicious sound of the resinous bow Oscar Peterson put into his piano play-

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Another unique feature!

42 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

ing remained communicative, though the notes were more percussive. Is Brown singing scat in the background? asked Toby. He asked to hear the piece again 2 dB louder. Whatever it was, there sure is a lot of detail, he said. In any case, it was worth hearing a second time. We ended with The Beatles Because from the Love album. The harmony from the three Beatles (actually six, because John, Paul and George overdubbed themselves) remained strong. Its a little atter and whiter, said Toby, but its still great. The subtle sounds of nature inserted into the pauses were possibly less subtle. The breeze became more evident, and Toby was tempted to swat the y that buzzed by his right ear. Or was it a bee, as Gerard thought it was? When it was over we listened to the DVD-Audio version from the second disc of the set. Yes, it was a y.

We ran instrument tests on the DACMagic, still connected to our Linn. We were surprised by the 100Hz square wave, above left, which had unusually high ringing on the leading edge, though not the trailing edge. The top is tilted, indicating a mild but signicant rolloff of high frequencies. The DACs lter has three settings (linear, max and min; we used the min setting.

Summing it up
Brand/model: Cambridge DACMagic Price: C$529/US$479 Size (WDH): 21.5 x 19 x 5.2cm Most liked: Great connectivity, modern innards, terrific value Least liked: Less effortless than the best players Verdict:Is Cambridge the only company with its eye on the future?

The low level (-60 dB) 1 kHz sine wave, above right, is contaminated by noise, but it is otherwise well-shaped. Of course this inexpensive converter cant quite keep up with our very expensive universal player, nor had we expected it to, but at several points during the session we expressed amazement that Cambridge has delivered such performance at what we consider low cost. The DACMagic is resolutely new school, too, and it has connections that more expensive, and theoretically better, DACs dont have. Need coaxial? Got it. Optical? Of course. What about a USB connection for your computer? Its right there. That, we should add, is a feature that is an option from Benchmark, an option that costs more than half the price of the whole DACMagic. The conclusion? The DACMagic is a bargain.

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CROSSTALK
The one-box CD player phenomenon had pretty much swept affordable converters like this one right off the market, and for good reason, I guess. Putting everything on the same chassis made sense. Only now it doesnt, because computers are more and more coming into their own as music sources. Yes, even among hard-core audiophiles. This device has all the connections you could want, and its performance is a delight. It is thoroughly modern, with none of the aws I associate with junk digital: shrillness, attening of depth cues, or truncated bass. At worst, on some recordings you can tell its working hard. Even so, I wonder how it would do with a better power supply. As I write this I havent made a decision, but I am strongly tempted to buy the DACMagic. I can think of a couple of places I could use it. Gerard Rejskind Is it fair to compare this little DACs sonics to those of a player costing thousands and truly capable of magic? There are musical moments a piece of gear has to reproduce, or one goes back to the drawing board. The ritardandos in the Ehnes violin piece, the pause near the end of the Viardot-Garcia song, the intensity of the Streisand performance, the rhythm and pace of the Peterson trio all came through. There are loads of detail, perhaps a bit too much. Ray Browns strings buzzed against the ngerboard a bit too strongly for me. I didnt like the size and proximity of the y on the Beatles track. It should just help to set the stage for a summer evening, but the DACMagic turned it into a big bug, and I wanted to swat it. There is some midrange hardness; I didnt like the way Oscars piano notes lost their shape and became percussive. Still, the DACMagic does the basics right, and it has really up-to-date connectivity. Lets say that the most truly magical thing about it is the fact that it does all it does at its price. Toby Earp

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 43

Blue Circle Phono

since the epoxy is translucent, and if you unplug the units from the wall, the lights on both the Biggie Pipe supply and the SP Capacitor Pack will continue to glow for several minutes. Because this is a modular system, the price a Fon Lo Thingee preamplier will cost you will depend on the modules you choose (see Summing Up on page 46). You can mix and match to your hearts content, as long as your choice includes one preamp and one power supply. Because these are (at least) two distinct products, we pretty much had to schedule two distinct listening sessions. We did, the same day and one after the other, but in different reference systems. The Fon Lo Thingee MM We held the rst session in the Omega room, where our Linn LP12 turntable is equipped with the superlative London Reference cartridge. Though it isnt actually a moving magnet cartridge (it isnt an MC cartridge either), its 5mV nominal output puts it in the M M camp. We put the Fon Lo up against our Audiomat Phono-1.6, plugged into our Moon P-8 preamplier with Atlas Mavros cables. We listened to our selected recordings with the Audiomat, and then with the full Blue Circle kit: the preamp, the Biggie Pipe and the SP Capacitor Pack, using the same interconnect cables. The rest of this article can be found in the complete print or electronic version of UHF No. 88. Order the print issue from www.uhfmag.com/IndividualIssue.html (its case sensitive). Or subscribe at www.uhfmag.com/Subscription.html. The electronic issue is available from www.magzee.com. We now cont inue in im itat ion Latin. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue

I
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t was an easy joke to make, but it was all too pertinent. If you bought these phono preamplifiers and forgot them on a bus, the SWAT team would establish a perimeter of security! The Fon Lo Thingee is from the mind of Blue Circles Gilbert Yeung, and hes no newcomer to unique designs. Hes the guy who once built a preamplier into a womans bright red handbag with monoblock ampliers in the matching shoes. To his surprise and ours too frankly they sold in large numbers. These products, like the excellent Thingee USB interface we reviewed in UHF No. 82 (and which impressed us enough that it can be found at our Audiophile Store), are built into rigid pipes, and sealed in with translucent epoxy. The pipe is lined with copper for shielding, though the ends are left open. The pipe at right, lying down on the job, is the moving coil version of the preamp. The pipe just to its left is the moving magnet version. At the front is the basic power supply you get with the lowest-cost option of either version. At far left is the Biggie Pipe power supply (Gilbert doesnt hold back on the whimsy when he names his products either), and the even fatter pipe next to it is the SP Condenser Pack, another option which

gives the power supply ever increasing muscle. The Basic power supply has a captive power cord and a red-and-white output cord ending in an XLR connector. The Biggie Pipe power supply is a bigger version of it, but it has an IEC socket, so that you can use the included molded cord, or (if youre wise) something else. We, of course, used a shielded cord. The optional SP Condenser Pack, which ts between power supply and preamp, has an XLR jack and one of those red-andwhite cords to lead to the preamp of your choice. We wish Gilbert hadnt used a threepin XLR like the ones used in audio. We picture a user, one dark and stormy night, plugging an expensive microphone into one of the power supplies. Laugh if you will, but remember that the reason European security rules frown on banana plugs is that, one such dark night, a Swede just back from tossing back a few with his friends decided that there could be no better time to rewire his stereo, and he plugged his speaker leads into the 230volt AC outlet! The power supplies and the capacitor plugs have pilot lights to indicate theyre on, but you dont see them, because theyre on the inside of the epoxy sealant. Their light can of course be glimpsed,

44 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

Margies back!

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magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eum my nim 46 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu facipsusto ea faccums andignis dit illaore do odit ilis dipit do euis eui te feugait niamcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi blamcon utpat verostio et wisi tetueros nos autat lutat prat, commy nullamet adip esto delis dignisl dolorpe rcilis eum eu feu feugiam zzrit utat, con elenisi. Commod dolestrud te te euis alis

Summing it up
Brand/model: Blue Circle Fon Lo Thingee Prices (in US dollars): MM & standard supply: $349 MM & Biggie Pipe supply: $549 MM & SP Capacitor Pack & standard supply: $749 MM & SP Capacitor Pack & Biggie Pipe supply: $949 MC & with standard supply: $374 MC & Biggie Pipe supply: $574 MC & SP Capacitor Pack & standard supply: $774 MC & SP Capacitor Pack and Biggie Pipe supply: $974 Dimensions: varied Most liked: Good sound for a bargain price, especially the basic version Least liked: Heard of the wife Acceptance Factor? You just think you have! Verdict:As the VW ads used to say, its ugly, but it gets you there

niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto dit nos accum nummodiam, quamet, sequiscipit accum adiat volorem nos aliquatuerit iusto con velenit ilit luptat. Od tat lor sim nisci tat at ut iril eum vullaor se ex enim dignim digna commodolore commy num veniam dolut wiscipit exercil ut ilis eum non volessim dunt wisl do do commod magniat. Ut wisisim zzrit nonsequatie magnit nos nonsed delenim dolenis adiatem zzrilisit ad doluptat. Quat ip eugait wissenis adipissecte do eu feugait praessit ute veniamc onulla feugueril et lore min essenis nos et amet lore molobor percipit in eniam, vulla coreet, venim eugiate dolore dionseniam nulla conse dip ex exerat, sequat nosto do euisciliqui etum delit nos nonse tem iriureet, secte dolor sum zzriustrud tat, suscips ustrud tie vel dolore modo conse modolortio et nos nit utem zzrit irit pratueros dolorem diat, quipit nonsequate magna facip exer summodion vullaore duis euismod ignibh esting et, vel estrud estrud dipisit inciduis aliquam eum doloborer sed tionsenit lum nos dolore eum niam iustrud euis am euipsum molobore cor at. Duiscilla adigna feugiam vent aliquam alit eu feu facip eu feugait ulputat, volortisisi. Il dignit erostie facidunt atio dolorem iustie magna core duipit wismod modit vel inibh et lore commolo rerosto delesseniat. Eliquis ex eugiam, suscidu ismodoloreet at. Molum zzriurem ad tem ipit aliquat. Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore vulpute feu faci endre dipsuscip el etumsan diametu mmodoloreet lore volore faccummy nulla at velit alit lorperos ad dio dolortin euis am il dolenibh eummy nonullam il et, quipit in ea faccum nos atue dolorerat la feumsandit enisim velis aut velit veros adipsusto odiamet augait iriliquisim velesse quatet alisi exero odolestrud mincipiscing endre doluptat prat, sit adignisl utet accum volor at, quis adit luptat. Ud dolor incipis modigniat acinibh erilla adignim num nim am, commod ea aut essequate ming ea facin velis dolore magna con ulla feugait augiamcore commy nisi. Ommy nim in ea augait, quam dolore consed tetue eu faccum vel utat. Ut aci bla facip et autatis autem dolenim nit,

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velisl ing el er suscill utpatin henibh ese duis alit, suscil dolesto coreet et vel et nummy nulla adit lorpero odo doluptatie verosting et vel utpat volorem quat adionsent ad molore deliqui psummy nit luptat, venibh erat. Duissi exerat, quis nos nulla feugueros niat, quisl dunt aute te dolor si. Ecte tatisim irit erat er sum iliquat am erit adiam, susci bla faci exerilit at praestrud magnim volore tis aut nim nostio commy nim deliqui sciduis nonsequatue euip ea aut ad eugait, conse ex essi tat, quis num ipit utem dolor sit aci eros dolorperat, volor sum atumsandre magna aut nos at praestie velisl et augait. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel

ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse

quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt.

CROSSTALK
Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum vulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eummy nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu facipsusto ea faccums andignis dit illaore do odit ilis dipit do euis eui te feugait niamcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim.

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 47

winner over its much more expensive competitor? Perhaps not quite. Albert thought the performance was superb, but had found the song more touching with our own cable. Such differences are not always easy to qualify. The second selection was I Got Lost in His Arms from Margie Gibsons Say It With Music (Shefeld CD-36). We often consider it to be the best song on an entire album of terric songs, because its so Lets just say you have to hear it for yourself. You know, said Gerard, when we rst listened to the Unidisk player, this was the song that persuaded me that it had to become our reference. With this cable the music is not quite as lively, but the difference is subtle, and in musical terms this version just works. Albert agreed. Of course her voice doesnt have quite the same roundness, as though there were less emphasis on the bottom end. But what does come IS Audio is one of those small to about US$450 as we write this. through is reproduced with a remarkable companies that would rather We listened to them in our Omega mix of clarity and smoothness. Very be known for making good system, placing them bet ween our interesting. products than for its growth Linn Unidisk player and our Moon P-8 Steve, for his part, wasnt in the mood rate or its revenue-to-equity ratio. Its preamplier. Our long-time reference is to search for aws. I liked the subtlety, a cable company. We have had occasion from Pierre Gabriel, and cost about the the gentle vibrato in Margies voice, he to review a number of its products, same as the Expressionplus $1200 or said. including interconnects, power cables so! After this brief session Albert asked to and power bars, and they have yet to We selected two particularly reveal- listen to the Expressions at home, where e, and it is disappoint us. them his Cambridge ing CDs and settled in for some rather he placed issubetween ur very rst o t in noCopland ly al Its tu . Whereas many cable designers work pleasant listening. ct ion was ac IsoMagic DAC and his CTAes in az ag other m v ice se is Paulinefe y comparing e Ad , man rent from305 lyHe e Fre preamplifier. was with cable they obtain on the market, ThThe rst selection Viardot ve if ti d ec F ll H co U e have, makes u. had come t that p yo rs, but w n hel themhto a that, long ago, possibly (but not always) modied, BIS onGarcias Luli (Analekta AN 2u 9093). an yo e elemenHa that ca r th g cable te in et b et y m an , Wireworld so e ned from The Audiophile .coma ears ar song was Store: designer Bernard Brien buys individual thThis gorgeous stunning with at our s weve lear ail@uhfmag ap h fm h er u P . at ce e n n on experie which didnt wires. Hes not one to give away trade ye both as a li Equinox tted with WBT Topline 0108 uestion ars ofcables, qcome it your ow n m b ine su n on-limpression: ca u therst information not even to us so surprise, but were there significant locking plugs. His on Yo s. sed in it ion u d e n b co ay f o m ) le p u r those r answerrecordings . Fo n u o with a lot happening, with theres not much we can tell you about bdifferences? io e rs rs ut note a co ve u t co n f ri do the p n (anwerent ingreat e used a many voices and instruments, the inner workings of these cables. they huge. Both our questio also b YCertainly may it d r home city. an , te yo si ut d ur esbshows on o ame an the u n BIS Expression really off its Oh, he does have one secret hes will- ve Albert Gerard wrote on their sheets r u rsion and yo ly t be used? Y p o p n su it to at d th ee y u n notes owed o specif mettle. $50/hour. Contact us dsparns, yo ing to share: he listens to his products re that piano like a an asothe n ti es u st ing it a q you subm currently co Ah well, perhaps some other time before he puts them on the market. kling mountain stream. Soprano (Can serv ice, Isabel n io at lt su n co What a concept! Bayrakdarians thats a paid voice was clear, and took BIS Audio will disappoint us. Not this .) ls ai et its place d in the palpable space (that of the time. for The BIS Expression interconnects Oscar Peterson Hall in Montreal no There are three copper conductors in articial reverb here). Pacing was excel- The BIS USB cable this cable, even though it isnt balanced. lent, and Isabels variations in tempo The what? Well forgive you for The two that carry signal are arranged slow and languorous, to rapid, to a near being skeptical, because we went into in a pair of inverse spirals. The third is stop were especially effective. I could this session not expecting much. Audio a shield. You may recognize the con- hear her breathe more clearly with the cables whether interconnects or nectors, which are ETIs Bullet Plugs. Expression, said Steve, and her highest speaker wires carry the actual analog We are on record as big fans of these notes were wonderful. They can be really representation of the music. Get any part connectors. of it wrong, andwell, it will come out troublesome. The 1m pair costs C$480 (equivalent Was the Expression the ultimate wrong at the other end. But no analog

Two BIS Cables

Advice! e e r F n i te Participa

48 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

information travels directly along a USB cable. Its digital, so what can go wrong? But wait a minute, weve always said (and our blind tests have borne out) that digital cables do make a difference. We use upscale digital coaxial cables ourselves between a digital source and a digital-to-analog converter. Weve even proved, through another blind test, that the length of a digital cable has an audible effect, and sometimes a radical one. Yes, length matters But wait a minute, didnt Denon, last year, bring out an Ethernet cable its picture on page 34 of UHF No.87). tone, full of angry, chaotic energy. In (Ethernet is also digital) that cost $500? It is designed for audio recording on the softer passages following, the woodAnd didnt they get hooted at for it by a computer, and so it contains both a winds had a particularly delicious tone, the on-line hordes? Does a hi- USB DAC and its mirror image, an analog- their distinctive timbres coming across cable make any more sense? After all, to-digital converter. Though some as totally natural. bits are bitswell, you know the drill. USB-connected products have their It seems to me theres more of a But theres a difference between Eth- own power supplies, the Edirol draws feeling of space too, said Albert, and ernet and USB. Ethernet is asynchronous, its power from the USB bus itself. The the orchestra has more weight, more meaning that data is sent in packets that cable needs to carry that too, of course. substance. contain no clock data (a synchronous For the sake of comparison we used Finally, Margie Gibsons CD, a favorversion exists, but is not widely used). the generic beige USB cable that came ite of ours, partly because it is so revealUSB is isosynchronous, which means that with the Edirol. We listened to three ing, but also because we hardly need an several data streams are transmitted at music les that were on the MacBook excuse to play it again. We selected You the same time. Is it then, conceivable, Pro, all of them of course without Keep Coming Back Like a Song. that USB might have a cable-related compression. It was superior with the BIS cable, vulnerability that Ethernet does not? We began with one of the selections and time there was no doubt about The eight pages that follow are a catalog for The Audiophile this Store. In any case, the shortcomings of USB we had used in the rst cable test, Ha it. Both Albert and Gerard indepenThe store belongs to UHF, and it is stocked with accessories and recordfor the transmission of audio have been Luli. Even listening with the generic dently wrote down the same thing: more ings that we recommend? documented by music professionals who cable we were reminded how good presence. Do we have a conict of interest? Actually we dont, because anything wish it were better. There havelike been computer audio can be. You would need course we dont doesnt make it to the store. Were not tempted to Of cheat, be-presence is not something complaints that, in a portable computer a pretty good CD player to beat this. Margie Gibson cause the credibility weve built up over the years is worth a lot more than lacks anyway, but the with two USB connections, one of If the And with thesomething fancy USBbetter, cable? so be it, impression that she was actually in the a few sales. a competitor makes and well even two will sound bettersay than another. Initially we werent sure (and rememroom was enhanced. Listen to the way so in a review. That doesnt appear to be the case of the ber, we hadnt come into this session she glides across the notes! said Gerard. And the store actually protects us from potential conicts. MacBook Pro portable we used for this expecting much of a difference). Were Albert admired the excellent articulation In the past, advertisers have attempted to shake us down, threatening evaluation, but we concede it may be true we imagining things? The piano accomof voice and instruments. At the very to cancel their ads if we published something negative. It hasnt happened in some cases. panying the song seemed to have more end the cellist draws his bow against for a while, but then everyone knows it wont work. The Audiophile Store Ordinary USB cables considered body. Her voice too, said Albert. It two strings, and the dissonant effect puts eight pages of advertising in every issue, and those are pages no one suitable for either slow USB 1.0 or seems to be richer, with more roundwas clearer with what we were starting can cancel. high speed USB 2.0, can between I ot think the text is easier to We follow to think great of as the good cable. cost Check out the ness. store, its on-line counterpart. think theres $2 and $10. As far as westuff had there. been able as well. But he added he was reserving But we wanted to be sure, and so If we didnt think so, it wouldnt be there. to determine in the past, the cost dif- judgement until he had heard the other we listened again with the beige cable, ference is due mainly to construction two selections. then with the BIS cable. No more doubt quality. That is nothing to sneeze at, We then listened to the Scherzo from was possible. With the cheap cable her but it wouldnt seem to be a t subject Bruckners Symphony No. 9 (Reference voice has less body, and the piano is off for a listening comparison. BIS claims Recordings RR-81CD). Once again, in its own bubble, said Albert. With superior performance for its USB cables, even what we heard with the generic the good cable everything is right again. which cost between C$120 and $180, cable surprised us. No wonder so many And the sound is natural, its not some depending on the length. We did our audiophiles are moving their digital sweetened version of reality. listening with the 1.8m (six-foot) cable, music to hard drives, said Gerard. Conclusion? USB cables make a difwhich costs C$150. Good as it was, it was noticeably ference. We dont know why, but if the For the comparison we pulled out our better with the BIS cable, with the full bloggers want to laugh at this company, Edirol UA-25 interface box (you can see orchestra taking on more of a ferocious well be here to defend it.

About the Audiophile Store

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 49

o you use headphones only at home, where its nice and quiet? More and more headphone fans wander out into a decidedly noisy world. The ubiquitous iPod is one obvious reason, but pretty much everywhere silence has become a rare commodity. Hence the appeal of noise-cancelling headphones. Dreadful as these phones once were, theyre getting better sufciently better that were willing to put them up against our studio-grade reference phones. But dont underestimate how bad they used to be and for the most part still are (we still have a pair of Jensen phones you couldnt pay us to wear). In UHF No.86 we shook down the Beats by Dr. Dre, and they were good enough we could actually ignore the noise-cancelling feature. Now along come the AblePlanet NC300W (the W stands for white, but its available in black as well). It offers much of what the Beats do (exactly how much, we shall see), at a lower price: US$130 versus US$300 (street prices are generally lower). How does noise-cancellation work? In fact it doesnt, except at low frequen50 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

AblePlanet Phones
cies. A microphone picks up the ambient rumble and mixes it out of phase with the desired audio. And voil, they cancel. Or theyre supposed to. Its difcult to pull this off well, and cheaper noise-cancelling phones sound grungy. Of course they require batteries, and some models wont work once the batteries die. The Beats are silent if its two AAA batteries run out of juice. The AblePlanets will work without their single AAA battery (supplied), though they dont sound too terric that way. Next to the on-off switch is an exceedingly bright red LED which reminds you that your battery current is trickling away. That can make you look a little like a borg when youre wearing them, but more than once we had overlooked the much more discreet LED on the Beats, and found ourselves with no sound. The killer feature of the Beats was their comfort, perhaps the best we have run across. The AblePlanets dont quite meet that standard, but theyre more than pretty good: light in weight, and a good t on the ears without excessive pressure. Like the Beats, this model has a detachable cord. It doesnt have the slim

plug to t iPhones, but it does have an in-line volume control. Thats a handy feature for a reason that may not be obvious. Powered phones are sensitive enough to let you hear hiss from a headphone amp. The in-line control lets you drop the sensitivity. We s u s p e c t theres some signal processing going on too. What the compa ny calls Linx Audio is billed as allowing you to listen at lower levels (and thus not risking your hearing) and st ill hear everything you want to hear. We connected out trust y Audio Alchemy headphone amp to the record out jacks of our Moon P-8 preamplier. We selected two familiar CDs, listening to them with our reference (the Koss Pro/4AAA we have owned for many years), and then the AblePlanets. We then listened to a third selection with both phones, this one from our iPod touch. The rst selection is a challenge: the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (from Organ Treasures, Opus 3 CD22031). This is not some little organ in a small country church! It sounded impressive with our reference phones, but it was plenty impressive with the AblePlanets as well. But I have the impression Im seated farther back, said Gerard, under the balcony, which would also place me under the organ chest. That aside, the bottom end was solid. Albert noted the considerable contrast between soft and loud passages, though he found the loud ones less than effortless. Because the phones are active they are also abnormally sensitive. This is an advantage if youre using a portable player, but with a headphone amplier you can make out some background hiss. Lowering the volume with the in-line control alters more than the volume, however. Albert found a satisfactory balance by playing with the control, but Gerard set it to full on.

We continued with Margie Gibsons Soft Lights and Sweet Music from her album Say It With Music. It sounded smoothin fact entirely too smooth, as though my head were wrapped in cotton batting, said Albert. Gerard found much the same thing, and ceded to the temptation to listen louder than he normally would. But thats not a good thing. The nal song, from the iPod touch, was Song of the Vagabonds from baritone Earl Wrightsons 60s album An Evening with Rudolf Friml. It came through very well, with no sign of strain, and nu muddiness. Wrightsons powerful voice was solid, with what seemed to be extra detail in his higher overtones possibly not really natural, but perfectly acceptable. The words were easy to follow, perhaps easier than with the reference. Albert

however found the orchestral instruments less detailed than he would have wanted. He asked to hear the same piece with other headphones, and he played it with the back-of-head Sennheiser PMX 40 phones Gerard uses out of doors. Its something else, he said, completely different. They give the orchestral detail I was missing, but its accompanied by a coloration I dont nd natural. We still had the Beats phones on hand, and we listened to the Wrightson piece with those too. Albert actually preferred them to the reference for the fatter bass, which had an extra dimension. Gerard thought the Beats brought him closer to the music, possibly a good thing, and he praised the effortless extended range. Actually, all the headphones are

colored, said Albert, more so than the best loudspeakers. But all in all I like the AblePlanets. Theyre comfortable, and theres something special about them. The AblePlanets share a drawback with the Beats: they may keep outside noise out, but they sure dont keep music in. You wont want to use them next to someone who is trying to sleep, and you might even hesitate to run in tight quarters, such as an airline coach section, at least if your fellow passenger is bigger than you are. AblePlanet does intend this model for travel, however. It comes with a very nice semi-rigid travel case to protect them on the go. AblePlanet, we should mention, bills these phones as affordable, and it offers several others, up to and including US$300.

Coming up in issue No. 89 of

Room Listening Feedback

Liquid Crystal HDTV: Does LED backlighting make it the equal of plasma? We get our hands on the latest. . Well bring you news of what we found at CES 2010, with our usual unique take. Well review a pair of oorstanding speakers with Heil tweeters, an exotic tube preamplier, a very small tube headphone amp AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!
52 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

THE AUDIOPHILE STORE

53

INTERCONNECTS
ATLAS NAVIGATOR
Oxygen-free continuous cast (OCC) cable: each strand is a single copper crystal. Two internal conductors, plus double shielding. The double shielding is copper mylar plus close-lapped 99.997% pure OCC copper multi-stranded screen providing 100% RFI protection. This premium All-Cu version (shown here) uses solid copper connectors that are also continuous cast. The copper is then silver-plated and double-shielded. We use two in our reference systems. ORDER: ANA-1 All-Cu, 1m, $405, ANA-2 All-Cu, 2m, $495 ORDER: ANAB-1 All-Cu balanced, single crystal XLR, 1m, $675

SPEAKER CABLES
ATLAS MAVROS CABLES
Weve adopted them for our Alpha system, which sounds better than ever before. This is a four-wire monocrystal cable with porous Teon dielectric. We are not recommending them with standard bananas or spaces, but we offer them either with ETI Bayonet Bananas, at no extra cost, or WBT nextgen..

CONNECTORS
EICHMANN BAYONET BANANAS
The Eichmann Bayonet Banana uses a minimum of metal, and tellurium copper at that, but clicks tightly into any binding post with spring action. For soldering or crimping, or both. ORDER: EBB kit 4 bayonet bananas, $99.95

EICHMANN SPADES
ORDER: AMBCu-3, 3 m pair, Bayonet bananas, $2150 ORDER: AMBCu-5, 5 m pair, Bayonet bananas, $3850 ORDER: AMSCu-3, 3 m pair, WBT nextgen bananas, $2390 ORDER: AMSCu-5, 5 m pair, WBT nextgen bananas, $4090

ATLAS QUESTOR

This could be the worlds lowest-cost interconnect with single-crystal copper. It has the same connectors as the Equator (below), and we thought it sounded like a much more expensive cable. However it is discontinued, and we have only the 2m length left. ORDER: AQ-2, 2 m pair Atlas Questor, $180

ATLAS HYPER SPEAKER CABLES

A big winner in one of UHFs blind tests of speaker cables is Hyper2, an oxygen free stranded wire in Teon dielectric.. Plus connectors (we recommend Eichmann Bayonet Bananas, $99.95/ set, two sets needed for AH2, three for biwire). ORDER: AH2, Hyper 2 cable, $29.95/metre ORDER: AHB, Hyper Biwire cable, $49.95/metre

Ready to solder, in gold-plated copper, or pure silver. Two sizes, plus extra narrow for barrier strips (McIntosh, Vandersteen, etc.). Price for sets of four. A. ORDER: EXB, set of 4, barrier strips, (now discontinued) B. ORDER: EXQ, set of 4, 1/4" (6.3 mm), $32 C. ORDER: EXQA, set of 4, 1/4" (6.3 mm), silver, $55 D. ORDER: EXF, set of 4, 5/16" (8 mm), $44 E. ORDER: EXF,A set of 4, 5/16" (8 mm), silver, $67

EICHMANN BULLET PLUGS

ATLAS EQUATOR

Perhaps the best $150 interconnect cable you could buy. Only it costs just $90. And yes, thats in Canadian funds. Other lengths on order. ORDER: AE-1, 1 m pair Atlas Equator, $90 ORDER: AE-2, 2 m pair Atlas Equator, $125

ATLAS ICHOR SPEAKER CABLE

ATLAS QUADSTAR

Terric in our blind test. With Eichmann Bullet plugs, or balanced with Neutrik XLR's. Silver solder included with kit. ORDER: AQS-1 pair Quadstar kit, 1m $124.95 ORDER: AQS-1A pair Quadstar assembled, 1m $199.95 ORDER: AQS-X pair Quadstar balanced kit, 1m $95.95 ORDER: AQS-XA pair Quadstar balanced, assembled, 1m $169.95

Continuous-cast single-crystal cable, ready for biwiring. It costs just $235 per meter of double cable (a 2m pair has 4meters of wire). We suggest adding the Eichmann Bayonet bananas, $99.95 per set of 4, or Furutech connectors, $70 a set of 4..

The rst phono plug to maintain the impedance of the cable by using metal only as an extension of the wire. Hollow tube centre pin, tiny spring for ground. Two contacts for soldering, two-screw strain relief. Gold over copper. Got silver cable? Get the unique Silver Bullets! ORDER: EBP kit 4 Bullet Plugs, $77.95 ORDER: EBPA kit 4 Silver Bullets, $154.95

EICHMANN CABLE PODS

Minimum metal, gold over tellurium copper. Unique clamp system: the back button turns but the clamp doesnt. Solder to it, or plug an Eichmann banana into it, even from inside! ORDER: ECP, set of four posts, $119.95

SINGLE CRYSTAL JUMPERS

Not biwiring? Dump the free jumpers that came with your speakers. Atlas jumpers are made from single-crystal copper, gold-plated spades. ORDER: ACJ, four single crystal jumpers, $99.95

PRISMAL DUAL INTERCONNECT

This Swiss-made cable has especially solid connectors. Teon dielectric. oxygen-free copper Toss your free interconnects! ORDER: PD-1, 1 meter pair Prisma Dual Interconnect, $34.95

CONNECTOR TREATMENT

DIGITAL CABLES
ATLAS COMPASS DIGITAL

MAVROS INTERCONNECTS

DeOxit (formerly ProGold) cleans connections and promotes conductivity. Small wipes for cleaning accessible contacts, or a squirt bottle for connections you cant reach. ORDER: PGW box 25 DeOxit wipes, $35 ORDER: PGS, can DeOxit uid, $35 ORDER: PGB, both when ordered at the same time, $56

Truly terric, a pair of these connects our phono preamp to the preamp of our Omega system

Excellent performance at an affordable price. Single crystal pure copper. The 1.5m version sounds way better than a 1m. ORDER: ACD-1.5 digital cable, 1.5m, $160

SILVER SOLDER

ATLAS OPUS DIGITAL

ORDER: AMI-1, 1 m Mavros interconnect pair, $1195 ORDER: AMI-2, 2 m Mavros interconnect pair, $1895

We dumped our reference cable for this one! And to be at its very best, it has to be this length. ORDER: AOD-1.5 digital cable, 1.5m, $399

This is a lovely solder, from the company that makes Enacom line lters (which we also like). Wak-Tech solder contains 4% silver, no lead. ORDER: SR-4N, 100g solder roll, $59.95

TWO CABLES INTO ONE JACK

Need to feed two preamps into two amps? This solid Y-adapter (two jacks into one phono plug) is gold over brass, with Teon dielectric. ORDER: FYA, one pair Y adapters, $20

TOSLINK OPTICAL DIGITAL

The best weve found yet, though were still looking. Add the mini-TOSLINK adapter for Airport Express or computers with hybrid jacks. ORDER: TD-1 TOSLINK cable, 1m length $22.95 ORDER: TMT mini-TOSLINK adapter, $3.95

SEE EVEN MORE PRODUCTS IN OUR ON-LINE CATALOG

www,uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html

www.uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html

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THE AUDIOPHILE STORE

MORE CONNECTORS
For crimping connections to certain connectors from WBT or Furutech, we recommend the gold crimping sleeves from WBT, and the special crimping tool.

ANALOG PRODUCTS
LONDON REFERENCE
Yes we can supply the awesome London Reference phono cartridge that we have adopted for ourselves. Other models on special order. this unique cartridge has a line contact stylus, and an output of 5mVright for an MM preamp. ORDER: LRC cartridge, $4695

MORE ANALOG
EXSTATIC RECORD BRUSH
The Super eXstatic. Includes a hard velvet pad to get into the grooves, two sets of carbon bre tufts. We use it every time! ORDER: GSX record brush, $36 you a Clamp your LP to the turntable platter. We use the J. A. Michell clamp, machined from nearly weightless aluminum. Drop it on, press down, tighten the knob. ORDER: MRC Michell record clamp, $75 ORDER: MRC-R clamp for Rega and short spindles, $85

Buy the tool at the same time as appropriate WBT or Furutech connectors, and well buy it back at the price you paid when youre through.

GOLDRING ELITE

J. A. MICHELL RECORD CLAMP

ORDER: WBT-0403 crimping tool (refundable), $125. The sleeves are shown here, actual size. WBT-0431 WBT-0432 WBT-0433 WBT-0434 WBT-0435 WBT-0436 WBT-0437 WBT-0438 0.75 mm sleeve 1 mm sleeve 1.5 mm sleeve 2.5 mm sleeve 4 mm sleeve 6 mm sleeve 10 mm sleeve 15 mm sleeve $0.50 $0.50 $0.50 $0.50 $0.60 $0.70 $0.85 $0.95

If you have limited funds and want an MC cartridge with line contact stylus, this is a great choice. It's a detuned version of the very expensive (but discontinued) Excel we still own. ORDER: GEC cartridge, $745

MOON PHONO PREAMPS

Simaudio has done it: come up with a worldclass phono preamp that does magic. The LP5.3 is one of the best available. Adjustable MM/MC. ORDER: Moon LP5.3, silver (black available on special order), $1599.

ATLAS QUADSTAR PHONO BOX

Got a tone arm with a 5-pin DIN plug. Substitute this Quadstar cable and box, and add the interconnect of your choice. straight DIN (shown) needs 7cm clearance. If you have less, get the version with an angled DIN plug. ORDER: AQPS, Quadstar phono box, $248 ORDER: AQPA, Quadstar phono box, angled DIN, $248

WBT NEXTGEN CONNECTORS

Special price on interconnect, one with an LP5.3 order. ORDER: ANA-1 Navigator All-Cu, 1m, $405, for $260 ORDER: ANA-2 Navigator All-Cu, 2m, $495 for $350 ORDER: ANAB-1 Navigator balanced, 1m, $675, for $475 ORDER: AMI-1, 1 meter Mavros, $1195, for $895 ORDER: AMI-2, 2 meter Mavros, $1895, for $1495 Even more astonishing: the LP3 includes much of the LP5.3 technology, still offers MM/MC, but costs only a fraction. Lively and musical, its difcult to match. ORDER: Moon LP3, $599 Special price on interconnect, one with an LP3 order. ORDER AQS-1, Kit ,1 m Quadstar, $124.95, for $59.95 ORDER AQS-1A, Fully assembled Quadstar, $199.95, for $99.95 NOTE: The Moon preamps are shipped set for moving magnet setting. Well reset it to your specication so you wont have to.

TITAN STYLUS LUBRICANT

WBT makes banana plugs and spades for speaker cables, all of which lock tightly into any post. All use crimping technology. These nextgen connectors are far superior to previous versions ORDER: WBT-0610 Kit 4 angled nextgen bananas, $130 ORDER: WBT-0610Ag Kit 4 nextgen silver bananas, $290 ORDER: WBT-0681 Kit 4 nextgen spades, $130 ORDER: WBT-0681Ag Kit 4 nextgen silver spades, $220

Amazing, but true: dabbing a bit of this stuff on your stylus every 2 or 3 LPs makes it glide through the groove instead of scraping. Fine artists brush not included, but readily available in many stores. ORDER: TSO-1 Titan stylus oil, $39.95

ZEROSTAT ANTISTATIC PISTOL

The high-tech minimum metal nextgen phono plugs. Easy to solder, with locking collar. Silver version available. ORDER: WBT-0110, kit 4 nextgen copper plugs, $170 ORDER: WBT-0110Ag, kit 4 nextgen silver plugs, $280

LP RECORD CLEANER

A classic adjunct to the brush is the Zerostat anti-static gun. Squeeze the trigger and release: it ionizes the air, which becomes conductive and drains off the static charge. By the way, it works for a lot more than LPs. No batteries needed. ORDER: Z-1 Zerostat antistatic pistol, $94..95

LP SLEEVES FURUTECH CONNECTORS

Rhodium-plated banana tightens under pressure. Installs like WBT banana. The spade installs the same way too.. ORDER: FTB-R, set of four bananas, $70 ORDER: FTS-R, set of four spades, $70 Concentrated cleaner for LP vacuum cleaning machines. Much safer than some formulas weve seen! Halflitre, mix with demineralized or distilled water to make 4 litres. ORDER: LPC, $19.95

PRICES CAN CHANGE AFTER WE GO TO PRESS. WE WILL ALWAYS GIVE YOU THE BEST PRICE

Keep your records clean and scratch free. Replace dirty, torn or missing inner sleeves with soft-plastic-in-paper Nitty Gritty sleeves. ORDER: PDI, package of 30 sleeves, $30

IF WE DONT LIKE IT YOU WONT SEE IT HERE

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THE AUDIOPHILE STORE

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VINYL ESSENTIALS TEST LP

This precision-made German test record lets you check out channel identication, correct phase, crosstalk, the tracking ability of your cartridge (its a tougher test than the old Shure disc was, and the resonance of your tone arm and cartridge. When we need to test a turntable, this is the one we reach for. ORDER: LP 003, Image Hi Test LP, $48.95

MORE POWER TO YOU

INSTANT CIRCUIT CHECKER

TURNTABLE BELT TREATMENT

What this is not is a sticky goo for belts on their last legs. Rubber Renue removes oxidation from rubber belts, giving them a new lease on life. But what astonished us is what it does to even a brand new belt. Wipe down your belt every 3 months, and make analog sound better than ever. ORDER: RRU-100 drive belt treatment, $14.95

Better access to electrical power. Change your 77-cent duplex outlets for these Hubbell hospital grade outlets. Insert a plug and it just snaps in. A tighter internal connection as well. The cheapest improvement you can make to your system. ORDER : AC-DA Hubbell duplex outlet, $23.95 ORDER : AC-D20 20A duplex, red color, $28.95

Plug it into an AC outlet, and the three lights can indicate a missing ground, incorrect polarity, switched wires ve problems in all. The rst thing we did after getting ours was phone the electrician. ORDER : ACA-1, Instant Circuit Checker, $21

IEC ON YOUR DVD PLAYER

Why do big name DVD players come with those tiny two-prong plugs for their cords? A good shielded power cable will do wonders! ORDER: DVD-A, GutWire adapter, $39

SUPER ANTENNA MkIII

Ours has no stupid rotary switch to muck things up, and with a 1.8m low-loss 75 ohm cable and gold-plated push-on F connector, it has low internal loss. Covers analog and digital TV bands as well as FM. ORDER: FM-S Super Antenna, MkIII, $55

No budget for a premium cable? Make your own! We use several ourselves. Foil-shielded, to avoid picking up or transmitting noise. Assembled or as a kit. With Hubbell 8215 hospital grade plug and Schurter 15A IEC 320 connector. For digital players, preampliers, tuners, and even medium-powered ampliers. ORDER: UHF14-1.5K, 14 gauge power cable kit, $74.95 ORDER: UHF14-1.5 14 cable, assembled, $99..95 Need it longer? Add $20 per metre extra

UHF 14 POWER CORD

HOSPITAL GRADE CONNECTION

When we put a quality AC plug on our kettle, boiling time dropped by 90 seconds! The best AC plug we have ever seen is the Hubbell 8215 hospital grade plug. It connects to wires under high pressure, and it should last forever. ORDER : AC-P2 Hubbell cord plug, $25.95 Amazingly good at a much lower price are these two cord plugs from Eagle. Male and female versions. ORDER : AC-P1 Eagle male cord plug, $5.95 ORDER : AC-PF Eagle female cord plug, $5.95

CLEANER POWER
AUDIOPRISM POWER FILTER
The Power Foundation III is a bargain, and does a wonderful job of cleaning the gunk from the power line. Requires 20A power cord (it has a different IEC connector. We recommend the UHF14, shown at right. ORDER: APF, Audioprism power line lter, $849 ORDER: UHF14-20-1.5 cable, $99..95

20-AMPERE POWER CORD

This is the one with the big IEC connectors whose contacts are rotated the other way. Its for certain large power amps and the Audioprism Power Foundation lter. Marinco 20 amp hospital-grade wall plug, which ts only a 20 amp wall outlet. Available with a 15 amp Hubbell wall plug instead. ORDER: UHF14-20-1.5 cable, assembled, $99.95 Need it longer? Add $20 per metre extra

Making your own power cords for your equipment? Youll need the hard-to-get IEC 320 connector to t the gear. ORDER : AC-P3 10 ampere IEC 320 plug, $9.95 ORDER: AC-P4 15 ampere Schurter IEC 320 plug, $18.95

BETTER DIGITAL
IMPROVED CD WITH FINYL
The maker of Finyl claims it reduces surface reections and provides a higher contrast image for the laser cell of your player. Use it just once. We get a lot of repeat orders on it. One kit can treat over 200 discs. Or order the rell. ORDER: F-1 Finyl kit, $40.00 ORDER: F-1R Finyl rell, $35.00

ENACOM LINE FILTER

Economy price, but astonishingly effective, we wouldnt run our system with less. It actually shorts out the hash on the power line. ORDER: EAC Enacom line lter, $105

UHF/FURUTECH POWER CORD

STINGRAY POWER BAR

Most power bars knock voltage to your equipment way down, and generate more noise than a kindergarten class. The Gutwire Stingray Squared doesnt. 12 gauge double-shielded cable, Hubbell hospital grade connectors at both ends. Indispensable! ORDER : GSR-2 Stingray Squared power bar, $285

We were so pleased with the performance of our UHF14 cable that we wanted to hear it with the upscale Furutech connectors. Wow! Pure copper IEC connector and copper/gold wall plug. ORDER: UHF14F-1.5K, 14 gauge power cable kit, 149.95 ORDER: UHF14F-1.5 14 cable, assembled, 174.95

CLEAN YOUR PLAYER

GUTWIRE G CLEF POWER CABLE

Multiple shielding, including external electrostatic shield connected to a clip. Used by UHF. Length 1.7m, longer cords on order. G Clef 2 has 195 conductors, 3 shields providing 98% shielding. Available optionally with 20A IEC plug (for ampliers requiring special plug) ORDER: GGC G Clef, Square 1.7m, $385

SEE EVEN MORE PRODUCTS IN OUR ON-LINE CATALOG www,uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html www.uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html

After a few months, your player may have more trouble reading your CDs. Unlike some commonlyavailable discs, the Milty CD lens cleaner is non-abrasive, so we use it and rest easy. Can be used wet or dry. ORDER : 2021 Milty CD lens cleaner, $35

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SUPPORT SYSTEMS
TENDERFEET
Machined cones are wonderful things to put under speakers or other audio equipment. They anchor it mechanically and decouple it acoustically at the same time. Tenderfeet come in various versions: tall (as shown) or attened, in either anodized silver or black. Tall Tenderfeet have threaded holes for a machine screw, or for the optional hanger bolt, which lets you screw it into wood. If you have a fragile hardwood oor, add the optional Tendercup (shown above) to protect it. ORDER: TFG, tall silver Tenderfoot, $15 ORDER: TFGN, tall black Tenderfoot, $16.50 ORDER: TFP, at silver Tenderfoot, $10 ORDER : TCP, silver Tendercup, $10 ORDER: THB, hanger bolt for Tenderfeet, each $0.80

THE SUPERSPIKE

AUDIO-TAK

Its blue, and its a sort of modelling clay that never dries. Anchor speakers to stands, cones to speakers, and damp out vibration. Leaet with many suggested uses. ORDER: AT-2, Audio-Tak pack, $10

AN ON-THE-WALL IDEA
This is unique: a sealed unit containing a spike and a cup to receive it. It wont scratch even hardwood oors. For speakers or equipment stands, on bare oors only. Four sizes of threaded shanks are available to t speakers or stands. ORDER: SSKQ, 4 Superspikes, 1/4 shank, $75 ORDER: SSKT, 4 Superspikes, 5/16 shank, $75 ORDER: SSKS, 4 Superspikes, 6mm shank, $75 ORDER : SSKH, 4 Superspikes, 8mm shank, $75

WHAT SIZE SUPERSPIKE?

Do you prefer spikes for your speakers? Target spikes and sockets mount in wood. Available with or without tools. ORDER: S4W kit, 8 spikes, sockets and tools, $39 ORDER: S4WS kit, 8 spikes and sockets, $30

A good ruler will let you gure it out. The stated size is the outer diameter of the threaded shank. Then count the threads: 1/4 shank: 20 threads/inch 5/16 shank: 18 threads/inch M6 (6mm) shank: 10 threads/cm M8 (8mm) shank: 8 threads/cm

Need to fasten a speaker securely to the wall? Nothing beats the Smarter Speaker Support for ease of installation or for sheer strength. And it holds the speaker off the wall, so it can be used even with rear-ported speakers. Easily adjustable with two hands, not three, tested to an incredible 23 kg! Glass-lled polycarbonate is unbreakable. Screws and anchors included, available in two colors. ORDER: SSPS, pair of black speaker supports, $29.95 ORDER: SSPS-W, pair of white speaker supports, $29.95

TARGET WALL STANDS

Long discontinued, this product from Audioprism is back. Of the many anti-vibration products we have tried, this is the one that is by far most effective for both vertical and lateral vibration (unfortunately some of the most famous ones dont work at all). Each Isobearing consists of a small ball and a cup to receive it. There are two models, each with a weight rating. The rating indicates the maximum weight each Isobearing should bear, but for optimum performance it should bear at least half of its rated weight. Use three or more Isobearings, placed according to the weight of the different sections of the amplier, digital player, etc. We now use Isobearings on our DVD player, and were glad theyre back. ORDER: ISO-M, single Isobearing, 2 kg/4.4 lbs $25 each ORDER: ISO-G, single Isobearing, 7.5 kg/17 lbs $40 each

ISOBEARINGS ARE BACK!!!

OTHER SUPERSPIKES

We keep our turntables on these, secure from oor vibrations, wonderful for CD players, ampliers, and all components.

We have also have a Superspike foot (at right) that replaces those useless feet on CD players, amps, etc., using the same screws to fasten them. And theres a stick-on version (not shown) for other components. ORDER: SSKF, 4 Superspike replacement feet, $80 ORDER: SSKA, 3 stick-on Superspike feet, $50

ORDER: VW-1 Target single-shelf wall stand, $225

SPEAKER STANDS

Your bookshelf speaker shouldnt be on a bookshelf. We have the four-pillar Target stands, in 24 or 28 height, ready to be lled with sand. ORDER: MR-24, one pair 24 Target stands, $325 ORDER: MR-28, one pair 24 Target stands, $349

ORDER: VW-2 Target dual-shelf wall stand, $280

AUDIOPHILE RECORDINGS, RECOMMENDED BY UHF STAFF

REFERENCE RECORDINGS
Tutti (HDCD, SACD) A terric symphonic sampler from Reference, with dazzling music by Bruckner, Stravinsky, etc. Also available as RRs very rst SACD release. Wow! 30th Anniversary Sampler (HDCD) A collection of excerpts from recent Reference albums. Yerba Buena Bounce (HDCD) The (terric) Hot Club of San Francisco is back, with great music, well-played, wonderfully recorded by Profesor Johnson! Crown Imperial (HDCD) The second chapter of the famous Pomp&Pipes saga, with the Dallas Wind Symphony, in a set of perfectly recorded pieces in glorious HDCD. Organ Odyssey (HDCD) Mary Preston, the organist of Crown Imperial, in a dazzling program of Widor, Mendelssohn, Vierne, and others. Serenade (HDCD) A collection of choral pieces, wonderfully sung by the Turtle Creek Chorale, with perhaps the best sound Keith has given them yet. Nojima Plays Liszt (HDCD) The famous 1986 recording of Minoru Nojima playing the B Minor Sonata and other works is backin HDCD this time! Nojima Plays Ravel (HDCD) Nojimas other hit disc, now also in glorious HDCD. Garden of Dreams (HDCD) David Maslankas evocative music for wind band. Beachcomber (HDCD) Fennell and the Dallas Wind Ensemble.Includes Tico Tico, A Chorus line, and a version of 76 Trombones youll remember for a long time. Holst (LP) From the composer of The Planets, 3 suites for wind band, plus the Hammersmith Prelude and Scherzo. Trittico (HDCD) Large helping of wind band leader Frederick Fennell doing powerhouse music by Grieg, Albeniz, Nelhybel, etc. Complex and energetic. Fennell Favorites (LP) The Dallas Wind Symphony: Bach, Brahms, Prokoev and more. Fireworks on this rare Reference LP.

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THE AUDIOPHILE STORE

Jazz Hat (HDCD) Pianist Michael Garson, in re-releases of some of his famous recordings Blazing Redheads (LP) Not all redheads, this all-female salsa-avored big band adds a lot of red pepper to its music. Felix Hell (HDCD) The young organ prodigy turns in mature versions of organ music of Liszt, Vierne, Rheinberger and Guilmant. Huge bottom end! American Requiem (HDCD) Richard Danielpour's awesome Requiem mass is all about war, and about the hope for peace too, with a dedication tied to 9/11. World Keys (HDCD) Astonishing young pianist Joel Fan amazes with music from all the world, including that of Prokoev and Liszt Ikon of Eros (HDCD) Huge suite for orchestra and chorus, by John Tavener. Inspired by Greek Orthodox tradition. Overwhelming HDCD sound. PLUS THESE HDCD RECORDINGS: Pomp&Pipes (HDCD) Requiem (HDCD) From the Age of Swing (HDCD) Swing is Here (HDCD) Copland Symphony No. 3 (HDCD) Medinah Sessions, two CDs for one (HDCD) Ports of Call (HDCD) Bruckner Symphony No. 9 (HDCD) Ein Heldenleben (HDCD) Erstrand, from 1983 to 1995. Long overdue! Unique Classical Guitar Collection (SACD) An SACD, mastered from analog, of some of Opus 3s long-discontinued classical guitar LPs. Terric! Beyond (SACD) The second recording by the versatile guitarist Peder af Ugglas (who also did Autumn Shufe, below), who plays every instrument there is: jazz, rock, blues, country. From Sweden??? Autumn Shufe (SACD/LP) Ugglas plays a number of different guitars, and borrows from jazz, Blues, and (yes!) country. Piano, organ, trombone, bowed saw, etc. Showcase 2005 (SACD) The latest Opus 3 sampler, with Eric Bibb, Mattias Wager, the Erik Westberg Vocal Ensemble and lots more, in glorious SACD. Organ Treasures (SACD) All those showpieces for big organ you remember hearing through huge systemsonly with all of the power and the clarity of Super Audio. 4.1 channels, plus 2-channel CD. Just Like Love (SACD/LP) The newest from Eric Bibb, less oriented to Gospel and more to Blues. Bibbs group, Needed Time, is not here, but hes surrounded by half a dozen ne musicians. A nice recording. Hybrid SACD. Comes Love (HDCD) Another disc by the terric Swedish Jazz Kings, led by saxophonist Tomas Ornberg, proving again Sweden understands jazz. The sound is luminous, sometimes dazzling. Its Right Here For You (HDCD) Is there, anywhere, a better swing band than The Swedish Jazz Kings (formerly Tmas Ormbergs Blue Five)? Closer to Kansas City than to Stockholm, they are captivating. Test CD 4 (SACD) A sampler of Opus 3 performers, clearer than youve ever heard them before. Hybrid disc. Test CD 5 (HDCD) Another of Opus 3s wonderful samplers, including blues, jazz, and classical music. A number of ne artists, captured with the usual pure Blumlein stereo setup. A treat. Showcase (SACD/LP) Available as a hybrid SACD/CD disc, or a gorgeously-cut LP, with selections from Opus 3 releases. Good Stuff (DOUBLE 45 LP/HDCD/SACD) As soothing as a summer breeze, this disc features singer Eric Bibb (son of Leon), singing and playing guitar along with his group. Subtle weaving of instrumentation, vivid sound. Spirit and the Blues (DOUBLE 45 LP/CD/SACD) Like his father, Leon Bibb, Eric Bibb understands the blues. He and the other musicians, all playing strictly acoustic instruments, have done a ne recording, and Opus 3 has made it sound exceptional. Tiny Island (SACD) If you like Eric Bibb and his group Good Stuff as much as we do, pick this one up. 20th Anniversary Celebration Disc (HDCD) A great sampler from Opus 3. Includes some exceptional ne pieces, jazz, folk and classical. The sound pickup is as good as it gets, and the HDCD transfer is luminous.

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Levande (CD) The full recording from which Tiden Bara Gr on Test Record No.1 is taken. Believe it or not, this great song isnt even the best on the album! A ne singer, doing folklike materialand who cares about understanding the words? Concertos for Double Bass (CD/SACD) This album of modern and 19th Century music is a favorite for its deep, sensuous sound. And the music is worth discovering. It is sensuous and lyrical, a delight in every way. Across the Bridge of Hope (SACD) An astonishing choral recording by the Erik Westberg Ensemble, famous for its Musica Sacra choral recording. Musica Sacra (HDCD/SACD) Test Record No.4 (LP)

PROPRIUS
Antiphone Blues (CD) This famous disc offers an unusual mix: sax and organ! The disc includes Ellington, Negro spirituals, and some folk music. Electrifying performance, and the recording quality is unequalled. Antiphone Blues (SACD/HDCD) This is the Super Audio version, with a Red Book layer that is HDCDencoded. The best of both worlds! Now the Green Blade Riseth (CD/SACD) Religious music done a new way: organ, chorus and modern orchestra. Stunning music, arranged and performed by masters, and the effect is joyous. The sound is clear, and the sheer depth is unequalled on CD. The new SACD version is the very best SACD we have yet heard! Jazz at the Pawnshop Set (SACD) The entire set oin glorious SACD, plus a video DVD with interviews with the sets creators. Jazz at the Pawnshop 2 (CD/SACD) From the original master, another disc of jazz from this Swedish pub, with its lifelike 3-D sound. Now a classic in its own right. Good Vibes (CD) The third volume of Jazz at the Pawnshop. And just as good! Cantate Domino (CD/SACD) This choral record is a classic of audiophile records. The title selection is stunningly beautiful. The second half is Christmas music, and includes the most stunning version of O Holy Night weve ever heard. Sketches of Standard (CD)

SHEFFIELD
Say It With Music (CD) Margie Gibson sings Irving Berlin in what may be one the greatest jazz vocal recordings of all time. And shes right in your living room! Growing Up in Hollywood Town (XRCD) The Amanda Albums (CD) How did they do it? The two complete McBroom recordings, Growing Up in Hollywood Town and West of Oz, on one terric CD Ive Got the Music in Me (CD) This was originally Shefelds LAB-2 release. If you havent heard Thelma Houston belt out a song, youre in for a treat. Kodo (CD) A Japanese neo-folk group plays astonishing music, including a 400pound drum that can take out a woofer. Or a wall! Harry James & His Big Band (Gold CD) Harry said he would have done this recording for free, because he sounded better than ever. The King James Version (CD) Harry James and his big band, live from the chapel! Drum/Track Record (XRCD2)

ANALEKTA
Violonchello Espaol (CD) I Musici de Montral comes to Analekta, with a stunning album of Spanish and Spanish-like pieces for cello and orchestra. Vivace (CD) Classical or rock? Claude Lamothe plays two cellos at the same time in an amazing recording of modern compositions. Pauline Viardot-Garcia (CD) Soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian steps into the role of 19th Century singer and composer Pauline Viardot so convincingly that listening to her is like going back in time. One of the best classical recordings of all time!

OPUS 3
Test Records 1, 2 & 3 (SACD) A blast from the past! Here are 14 cuts from the samplers that launched Opus 3. They sound better than ever, too Swingcerely Yours (SACD) An SACD re-re-release of tracks from superb vibraphonist Lars

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58
Romantic Pieces (CD) How does James Ehnes manage to get such a sweet sound from his Stradivarius? Czech pieces from Smetana, Dvorak and Janacek. The playing is as glorious as the tone, and the sound is sumptuous. Cantabile (CD) The Duo Similia is made up of striking blonde twins, who play ute and guitar. Familiar airs from Mozart, Faur, Elgar, Ravel, lots more. Fine listening. Nota del Sol (CD) The Labrie twins are back, with a delightful recording of ute and guitar music by Piazzola, Pujol and Machado. Joyous works, wonderfully played and recorded Fantasia (CD) A third, gorgeous, recording by the twins, on ute and guitar. Fritz Kreisler (CD) Possibly the best recording of Kreislers delightful violin music: James Ehnes and his Strad bring a new magic to this ne disc. French Showpieces (CD) Awesome violinist James Ehnes, with the Quebec City Symph. takes on Saint-Sans, Berlioz, Chausson, Massenet, and more. Handel (CD) Superb soprano Karina Gauvin is joined by the Toronto chamber ensemble Tafelmusik in a series of glowing excerpts from Handels Alcina and Agrippina. The sound is smooth and lifelike, with an acute sense of place. Little Notebook of Anna Magdalana Bach (CD) Over 30 delightful pieces, most by Bach himself. Soprano Karina Gauvins voice is mated to Luc Beausjours harpsichord work. The sound is deep, detailed and warm, truly of audiophile quality. Vivaldi: Motets for Soprano (CD) The wonderful soprano Karina Gauvin tackles the gorgeous but very difcult vocal music of Vivaldi: two motets and a psalm.

THE AUDIOPHILE STORE

Camara died just before the disc was released. A long-time best-seller worldwide Styles (CD) Is this ever a surprising disc! Violinist Marc Blanger worked up these string tudes for his music students, but they actually deserve to be put out on a gold audiophile disc! The more strings he adds, the better it gets. Fable (CD) Easygoing modern jazz by Rmi Bolduc and his quartet, on this gold disc. Some exceptional guitar and bass solos. Musique Guy St-Onge (CD) One-man band St-Onge plays dozens of instruments scores for fourteen lms which never existed outside of his imagination. Fun pretext, clever, attractive music that makes you wish you could see the lms! Sonatas for Flute and Harp These same great artists with sonatas by Krumpholz and Damase, as well as Spohr and Glinka. Oh yes, and a spectacular solo harp version of Iberts hilarious Entracte . Norman Dello Joio (CD) This contemporary composer delights in the tactile sound of the wind band, and the Keystone Wind Ensemble does his music justice. So does the sound, of astonishing quality! Carmina Burana (CD) The celebrated Carl Orff oratorio sends chills down your spine, thanks to the huge orchestra, gigantic choir, and of course the clarity and depth of the Klavier sound. Obsecin (CD) The Trio Amad plays Piazzola, Berstein, Copland, and Emilion Clonwho is the trio cellist. The Coln and Piazzola is denitely worth the price of admission. Lifelike sound. Misbehavin (CD) The superb Denver Brass does Gershwin (Cuban Overture, Porgy and Bess), plus On the Town, Sweet Georgia Brown, and of course Aint Misbehavin. Great sound. Hemispheres (CD) The North Texas Wind Symphony with new music by contemporary composers who know how to thrill. Some of the best wind band sound available. Illuminations (CD) Absolutely great chamber musicians take on music by Villa-Lobos, Malcolm Arnold, and some composers you may not know but youll wish you did. Sublime sound, nothing less. Kickin the Clouds Away (CD) Gershwin died more than 60 years ago, but you can hear him playing piano in glowing stereo. Nineteen of his pieces are on this ne CD, including a solo piano version of the Rhapsody in Blue.

HI-RES MUSIC (FOR DVD PLAYERS)

Brazilian Soul (24/96 DVD) Guitarists Laurindo Almeida and Charlie Byrd, plus percussion and bass, in an intimate yet explosive recording of samba and bossa nova music. Great! Jazz/Concord (24/96 DVD) It's 1972, and you have tickets to hear Herb Ellis, Joe Pass, Ray Brown and Jake Hanna at the Concord Jazz Festival. You wont ever forget it. You can be there, with this high resolution disc that goes in your DVD. Rhythm Willie (24/96DVD) Guitarists Herb Ellis and Freddie Green, With bassist Ray Brown and others. This is an uncompressed 24 bit 96kHz disc that can be played on any video DVD player. Awesome! Trio (24/96 DVD) Pianist Monty Alexander with Herb Ellis and Ray Brown. Makes CD sound seem as if its coming through a drinking straw. Playable on any DVD player, uncompressed. Seven Come Eleven (24/96 DVD) Herb Ellis and Ray Brown again, but this time with guitarist Joe Pass (he and Ellis alternate playing lead and rhythm), and a third guitarist, Jake Hanna. This is a live recording from the 1974 Concord Jazz Festival. Soular Energy (24-96 DVD/ 24-192 DVD-Audio) Perhaps the worlds greatest bassist, the late Ray Brown, playing with pianist Gene Harris, whom Brown called one of the greats. The proof is right on this 24/96 recording, made from the analog master. Side2 has a 24/192 DVD-A version.

AUDIOQUEST
Mississipi Magic (CD/SACD) The legendary Blues, Gospel, rock and world beat singer and musician Terry Evans, in an energetic recording we loved. Come to Find (CD) The rst by Bluesman Doug McLeod, as impressive as the second, and no Blues fan should resist it. You Cant Take My Blues (CD) Singer/songwriter Doug MacLeod and colleagues present one of the most satisfying Blues records ever made. Unmarked Road (SACD) The third disc from the great blues singer and guitarist Doug McLeod is every bit as good as the rst two. Bluesquest sampler (CD)

FIRST/LAST IMPRESSIONS
La Fille Mal Garde (XRCD) A ne ballet with the Royal Ballet Company orchestra, from the original 1962 Decca recording. Exceptional Film Spectacular II (XRCD) The orchestra of Stanley Black plays some of the greatest lm music of bygone years. From the original Decca Phase 4 tape. Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante (XRCD) Igor and David Oistrakh with the Moscow Philharmonic, in a glorious 1963 recording, from the original master tape Artistry oi Linda Rosenthal (HDCD) The great violinist Rosenthal plays favorites: Hora Staccato, Perpetuum Mobile, Debussys Beau Soir, etc. Suite Espaola (XRCD) The Albniz suite, gorgeously orchestrated by Rafael Frhbeck de Burgos, who conducts the New Philharmonia. Beautifully remastered from the original 1963 tape. Audiophile Reference IV (SACD) A stunning sampler, with recognizable audiophile selections you have never heard sound this good! Songs My Dad Taught Me (HDCD) Jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro and three other musicians, with a retro collection of unforgettable tunes.

KLAVIER
Evolution (CD) Lowell Graham and the USAF wind band, with two superb suites by Holst, plus music by Nelhybel, Hanson, etc. Lively, tactile sound with impact by Bruce Leek.. Poetics (CD) A superb wind band recording which includes a breathtaking concerto for percussion. Caprice (CD) Can harp be spectacular? Believe it! This famous Klavier recording features Susann McDonald playing Faur, Glinka and Liszt, is a powerhouse! Engineered by Keith O. Johnson, with a great transfer by Bruce Leek.

SILENCE
Tres Americas (CD) A gold audiophile disc of lively Latin fusion music. Irka Mateo and Tadeo de Marco sing and play, drawing their inuence from Africa as well as their native Brazil. Clear, close-in sound. Djemb Tigui (CD) This gold disc features the voice and percussion of African artist Sekou Camara, captured by the famous Soundeld microphone.

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THE AUDIOPHILE STORE

Caf Blue (HDCD/CD) Gold HDCD version of jazz singer Patricia Barbers 1994 classic, an audiophile underground favorite. Or get the original CD, at lower cost. Neil Diamond: Serenade (CD) Just eight songs on this European CBS disc, but what songs! Ive Been This Way Before, Lady Magdalene, Reggae Strut, The Gift of Song, and more. Glowing sound too. Harry Belafonte (CD) We havent heard Belafonte sound like this except on analog. The 16 songs include Island in the Sun, Jamaica Farewell, Midnight Special, Michael Row the Boat Ashore, Brown Skin Girl, etc. Sources (CD) A wonderful recording by Ba (pronounced Bee-yah). Shes Brazilian, lives in France, recorded this terric album (in 5 languages!) in Montreal. Just her warm voice and guitar, La mmoire du vent (CD) The original recording by Ba, in French, Portuguese and English. If you love her second one, dont hesitate. Carmin (CD) The third by Ba. Different this time, with more money for production, but it has been spent wisely. Superb songs, gloriously sung in Portuguese, French and the ancient Aymara language. Coeur vagabond (CD) Ba sings French songs in Portuguese, Brazilian songs in French. A delight, as usual from this astonishing singer

59
Nocturno (CD) Some are saying that this is Bas best and most touching album since Sources. See if you agree. You wont be disappointed.

MISCELLANEOUS
Pipes Rhode Island John Marks recorded this tour of the organs of the tiny state, with amazing tones, captured in astonishing sound All We Need to Know Jazz singer Margie Gibsons rst album since Say It With Music, on Shefeld. No one sings the way she does! Classica dOro (CD) All of the classical worlds most important heritage, on 50 audiophilequality gold CDs, at under $4 per CD. Fine artists from Germany, Austria, the UK, Eastern Europe. Listen to excerpts on line. Blues for the Saxophone Club (HDCD) Swing jazz pianist Jeremy Monteiro, with guest artists, including saxophonist Ernie Watts. The HDCD sound is explosive! My Foolish Heart (CD) A collection of live and atudio pieces by Monteiro and other musicians, notably saxophonist Ernie Watts

PURE PLEASURE LPs

Duke Ellington 70th Birthday Concert (LP) A double 180-gram LP set, recorded live in England Includes Take the A Train, Satin Doll, Perdido, many others. Is That All There Is? (LP) Yes, its a 180-gram vinyl version of what must be Peggy Lees most famous album. Includes Me and My Shadow, Im a Woman, Dont Smoke in Bed, more. Blue Rose (LP) In the 50s, Rosemary Clooney was at the top of her form, with a technique that sends chills down your spine. She is accompanied by Duke Ellington and his musicians. She does denitive versions of Ellington songs, such as Sophisticated Lady, It Dont Mean a Thing If It Aint Got That Swing, I Got It Bad and That Aint Good. This is a mono LP, but listen to hear how great mono could be! After Midnight (LP) A mono double-album of Nat King Coles greatest performances, with his own trio. Includes Sometimes Im Happy, Caravan, Its Only a Paper Moon, Route 66, You Can Depend on Me. A great classic, available on premium vinyl once more..

Payment by VISA or MasterCard, cheque or money order (in Canada). All merchandise is guaranteed unless explicitly sold as is. Certain items (the Super Antenna, the EAC line lter, and most standard-length cables) may be returned within 21 days less shipping cost. Other items may be subject to a restocking charge. Defective recordings will be exchanged for new copies. HERES HOW TO CALCULATE YOUR SHIPPING COST: IN CANADA: up to $30, 7%, up to $60, 5%, above $60 not counting taxes, free. In Canada shipping costs are taxable. TO THE USA: up to $30, 10%, up to $60 7%, above $60, 5%. TO OTHER COUNTRIES: up to $30, 18%. Up to $60, 15%. Above $60, 10%, MINIMUM $6. Magazines, books and taxes are not counted toward the total. BRAND MODEL DESCRIPTION PRICE EACH QUANTITY TOTAL PRICE

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Box 65085, Place Longueuil, LONGUEUIL, Qubec, Canada J4K 5J4 Tel.: (450)651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383 Internet: www.uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html E-mail: uhfmail@uhfmag.com

TOTAL COST OF ACCESSORIES COST OF RECORDS ON OTHER SIDE OF THE PAGE SHIPPING COST (SEE ABOVE) TOTAL COST BEFORE TAXES

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On the other side of this page, circle the number of each of the records you need. On the coupon above, add in the list of accessories, calculate the total, and add shipping and all applicable taxes. All prices are in Canadian dollars. Include a cheque or money order (Canada or US only), or include your credit card number (VISA or MasterCard), expiry date and signature. Note that prices may uctuate, and the current price always applies. We are not responsible for typographical errors. If a price drops after we go to press (yes, it does happen), you will be credited for any overpayment.

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CARD NUMBER________________________________EXP. DATE_____________SIGNATURE________________________________________ NAME______________________________________ADDRESS_______________________________________________APT._____________ CITY_________________________________PROV./STATE___________________COUNTRY__________________POST. CODE_____________ = INDICATES RECORDINGS USED IN UHF EQUIPMENT REVIEWS www.uhfmag.com/AudiophileStore.html

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VINYL ALBUMS After Midnight (2 LP) W782 Autumn Shuffle LP22042 Blazing Redheads RR-26 Blue Rose CL872 Duke Ellington 70th Bday (2 LP) 60001 Fennell Favorites RR-43 Good Stuff (2 LP) LP19603 Is That All There Is? ST-386 Jazz at the Pawnshop 7778-79 Just like Love LP20002 Showcase LP20000 Spirit and the Blues (2 LP) LP19401 Test Record No.4 OPLP9200 Trittico RR-52 Vinyl Essentials (test) LP003 48.00 27.95 25.00 36.00 48.00 25.00 47.95 36.00 65.00 27.95 27.95 47.95 27.95 32.00 48.95

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Artistry of Linda Rosenthal Bach Sonatas, violin & harpsi. Bach Suites, Airs & Dances Beachcomber Best of Chesky & Test, vol.3 Best of the Red Army Chorus Beethoven Symph. 5 & 6 Blues for the Saxophone Club Bluesquest Bossa Nova Bruckner: Symph. No.9 Caf Blue Caf Blue (HDCD gold) Cantabile Cantate Domino Caprice Carmin Carmina Burana Classica dOro (50 CDs) Come to Find Come Love Companion Coeur vagabond Concertos for Double Bass Copland Symphony No.3 Djemb Tigui Drum/Track Record Ein Heldenleben Evolution Eybler Quartets Fable Fantasia Felix Hell Flm Spectacular II French Showpieces Fritz Kreisler From the Age of Swing Garden of Dreams Gitans Good Stuff Good Vibes Growing up in Hollywood Town Handel Harry Belafonte Harry James & His Big Band Hemispheres Illuminations Infernal Violins Its Right Here For You Ive Got the Music in Me Jazz at the Pawnshop Jazz at the Pawnshop 2 Jazz Hat Jazz/Vol.1 Keep on Movin Kickin the Clouds Away Kodo La Fille Mal Garde La mmoire du vent Les matins habitables FIM022VD 27.95 AN 2 9829 21.00 FL 2 3133 21.00 RR-62CD 16.95 JD111 21.95 AN 2 8800 21.00 AN 2 9891 21.00 26-1084-78-2 21.95 AQCD1052 21.95 JD129 21.95 RR-81CD 16.95 21810 21.95 CD 010 39.95 AN 2 9810 21.00 7762CD 21.95 K11133 21.00 ADCD10163 21.00 K 11136 21.00 GCM-50 149.95 AQCD1027 21.95 CD19703 19.95 22963 21.00 ADCD10191 21.00 OPCD8502 21.95 RR-93CD 16.95 SLC9605-2 22.00 10081 21.00 RR-83CD 16.95 K11161 21.95 AN 2 9914 21.00 SLC9603-2 22.00 AN 2 9819 23.00 RR-101CD 16.95 XR24 070 35.00 FL 2 3151 21.00 FL 2 3159 21.00 RR-59CD 16.95 RR-108 16.95 Y225035 24.95 CD19603 19.95 PRCD9058 19.95 LIM XR 001 38.95 FL 2 3137 21.00 295-037 19.95 10057-2-G 24.00 K11137 21.00 K11135 21.00 AN 2 8718 21.00 CD19404 19.95 10076 21.00 PRCD-7778 19.95 PRCD9044 19.95 RR-114 16.95 JD37 19.95 AQCD1031 19.95 K77031 21.00 12222-2 21.00 XR24 013 38.95 ADCD10144 21.00 GSIC-895 21.00 Levande OPCD7917 Leyrac chante Nelligan AN 2 8815 Liszt-Laplante FL 2 3030 Little Notebook of Anna M. Bach FL 2 3064 Masters of Flute & Harp KCD11019 Medinah Sessions RR-2102 Mendelssohn: 2 Violin Conc. FL 2 3098 Misbehavin K77034 Mozart Complete Piano Trios AN 2 9827-8 Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante XR24 069 Mozart: Soprano Arias FL 2 3131 Musica Sacra CD19506 Musique Guy St-Onge SLC9700-2 Musiques dEurope centrale 88001 My Foolish Heart 26-1084-92-2 Neil Diamond: Serenade 465012-2 Nocturno ADCD10227 Nojima Plays Liszt RR-25CD Nojima Plays Ravel RR-35CD Non-Stop to Brazil JD29 Norman Dello Joio K11138 Nota del Sol AN 2 9817 Now the Green Blade Riseth PRCD9093 Obsecin K11134 Opera for Two FL 2 3076 Organ Odyssey RR-113 Pauline Viardot-Garcia AN 2 9903 Pipes Rhode Island CD101 Poetics K11153 Pomp&Pipes RR-58CD Ports of Call RR-80CD Requiem RR-57CD Rio After Dark JD28 Romantic Pieces FL 2 3191 Sans Domicile Fixe 19012-2 Say It With Music CD-36 Serenade RR-110 Sketches of Standard PRCD 9036 Songs My Dad Taught Me FIM0009 Sources ADCD10132 Spirit and the Blues CD19401 Styles SLC9604-2 Suite Espaola XR24 068 Swing is Here RR-72CD Telemann Sonatas for 2 Violins FL 2 3085 Test CD 5 CD20000 The King James Version 10068-2-F Tres Americas SLC9602-2 Trittico RR-52CD Tutti (HDCD) RR-906CD Ultimate Demonstration Disc UD95 Villa-Lobos FL 2 3051 Violonchelo Espaol AN 2 9897 Vivace AN 2 9808 Vivaldi: Motets for Soprano FL 2 3099 Vivaldi: Per Archi FL 2 3128 World Keys RR-106 Yerba Buena Bounce RR-109 You Cant Take My Blues AQCD1041 19.95 21.00 21.00 21.00 21.00 16.95 21.00 21.00 27.50 38.95 21.00 19.95 22.00 24.95 21.95 16.95 21.00 16.95 16.95 19.95 21.00 21.00 19.95 21.95 21.00 16.95 21.00 15.95 21.00 16.95 16.95 16.95 19.95 21.00 24.95 21.00 16.95 19.95 27.95 21.00 19.95 22.00 38.95 16.95 21.00 21.95 21.00 22.00 16.95 16.95 20.00 21.00 21.00 21.00 21.00 21.00 16.95 16.95 21.95

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The 007 Franchise

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he Ian Fleming books seem dated now. The later ones were the product of the Cold War, but it was clear that Ian Flemings sensibilities were formed in an earlier era, that of World War II. This matters little in fact, because the famous series of 22 (or more) Bond movies have only a tenuous connection with the novels whose titles they sometimes borrowed. I didnt enter 007s web until Goldnger, the third of the Bond lms, and arguably one of the best ones even today. You may remember the scene before the main titles: Bond arrives in a diving suit and overpowers some guards so that he can plant a time bomb inwell, an oil storage depot, or in any case something that can blow up spectaculaly. So far so mundane. But then he swims out, emerges from the water, unzips his diving suit to reveal that he is wearing a white dinner jacket, and he pauses to place a red carnation in his lapel. I was hooked! Of course I needed to catch up, and what luck! the very next week a neighborhood cinema (remember them?) was showing Dr. No and From Russia With Love as a double feature. That was a

by Gerard Rejskind
lot of Bond, but it got me up to speed. Since then Ive caught them all, the good, the bad (oh, they did get pretty bad at times), and the indifferent. I mostly adjusted to Bonds changing face and style, as new actors stepped into the role, sometimes with more success than others. By the time Goldnger was released, the format of the story was pretty much established. The villain was not, typically, working for a foreign power, even if it might seem that way. Rather, he was connected with a shadowy criminal organization, such as SPECTER, an acronym for SPecial Executive for Counterintelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. Extortion is actually their main game, though if Bond has eliminated a member of the organization in a previous lm, it can go in for a little

James Bond must be about 85 by now, but secret agents are forever

revenge too. Sometimes the organization is a little more up-to-date, like the terrorist clan whose Chief Financial Officer is Le Chiffre (Casino Royale). Sometimes the villain works only for himself, like Auric Goldnger. There are two recurring themes: extortion and cornering the market. The extortion is often based on the theft of some sort of weapon, and especially nuclear weapons, as in Thunderball, to be used in a rather irresponsible way, unless In Moonraker the space shuttle is stolen right from the back of the Boeing 747 ferrying it. A frequent element is the existence of the villains lair, which is usually remote and difcult to get to. It may be on an island, as in Dr. No and The Man With the Golden Gun, it may be a oating city, as in The Spy Who Loved Me, or it may even be in orbit (Moonraker). Wherever it is is located, it is loaded with expensive high-tech accoutrements that have been added for no obvious purpose. Bond always succeeds in getting in, of course, because there is inevitably a weakness in the defense system, though the real trick is to get out in time. And oh yes, to save the Bond girl, who will burn or drown or be sucked into outer space if her hero is not there for the rescue. It seems evident that the villains high-tech gadgets didnt come out of the Brookstone catalog, but where do you go to pick up all these ashy devices including (for instance) an elevator which, at the tap of a button on a console, will drop you into a giant aquarium with sharks? Thats from The Spy Who Loved Me. At the same time, we know that the lair installations have not gone through even elementary security tests, because it will take very little to cause them to burn, sink or (nearly always) explode spectacularly. In The Man With the Golden Gun, for example, Scaramangas solar energy installation has vats of uid at absolute zero (would they then be uid, even if absolute zero were attainable?), with a warning sign that the vats must remain at absolute zero. When Bonds ditzy assistant Mary Goodnight ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 61

catapults an evildoer into the uid, thus raising its temperature, the system does not fail gracefully. It catches re and begins to explode, casting into doubt the security of solar energy! Even the many monitoring instruments explode. By the time Bond and Goodnight get away the entire island, somewhere off China, is wiped off the map. Havent these people ever heard of fuses? Bond himself has plenty of gadgets at his disposal, even if theyre less cumbersone than those of the opposition, and seeing them rolled out is an important part of the fun. British intelligence has its own research lab, headed by the dour Q, who little appreciates what happens 62 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

to his gear in the eld. Ever yones favorite, I think, remains the Aston M a r t i n DB6 (show n at top) that costars in Goldfinger (and makes a repeat appearance in On Her Majestys Secret Service, even though it was demolished in the earlier lm). One of the best scenes with Q is the one where he is showing Bond the buttons for the rotating license plates, the smoke screen, the oil slick, the bulletproof shield, the machine guns, and finally the ejector seat. Ejector seat? says Bond. Youre joking. I never joke about my work, 007, replies a weary Q, conrming what we have come to suspect about him. The rest of this article can be found in the complete print or electronic version of UHF No.88. Order the print issue from www.uhfmag.com/ IndividualIssue.html (its case sensitive). Or subscribe at www.uhfmag. com/Subscription.html. The electronic issue is available f rom w w w. magzee.com. We now cont inue in im itat ion Latin. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla

feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eum my nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit

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ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu facipsusto ea faccums andignis dit illaore do odit ilis dipit do euis eui te feugait niamcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi blamcon utpat verostio et wisi tetueros nos autat lutat prat, commy nullamet adip esto delis dignisl dolorpe rcilis eum eu feu feugiam zzrit utat, con elenisi. Commod dolestrud te te euis alis niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto dit nos accum nummodiam, quamet, sequiscipit accum adiat volorem nos aliquatuerit iusto con velenit ilit luptat. Od tat lor sim nisci tat at ut iril eum vullaor se ex enim dignim digna commodolore commy num veniam dolut wiscipit exercil ut ilis eum non volessim dunt wisl do do commod magniat. Ut wisisim zzrit nonsequatie magnit nos nonsed delenim dolenis adiatem zzrilisit ad doluptat. Quat ip eugait wissenis adipissecte do eu feugait praessit ute veniamc onulla feugueril et lore min essenis nos et amet lore molobor percipit in eniam, vulla coreet, venim eugiate dolore dionseniam nulla conse dip ex exerat, sequat nosto do euisciliqui etum delit nos nonse tem iriureet, secte dolor sum zzriustrud tat, suscips ustrud tie vel dolore modo conse modolortio et nos nit utem zzrit irit pratueros dolorem diat, quipit nonsequate magna facip exer summodion vullaore duis euismod ignibh esting et, vel estrud estrud dipisit inciduis aliquam eum doloborer sed tionsenit lum nos dolore eum niam iustrud euis am euipsum molobore cor at. Duiscilla adigna feugiam vent aliquam alit eu

Gun Barrel Sequence?

Thats the opening sequence shown on the previous page (that is one from Dr. No). Were not certain where the gun barrel appelation came from, butit is clearly wrong, because no gun barrel looks like that. The spiral pattern is that of the diaphragm of a human eye, seen from the inside. It is in fact that of the victim of 007s shot. Note, by the way, the hat on what we presume to be James Bond himself. Men once wore those, summer or winter. Once Roger Moore took over the role, 007 was bare-headed in that sequence.

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feu facip eu feugait ulputat, volortisisi. Il dignit erostie facidunt atio dolorem iustie magna core duipit wismod modit vel inibh et lore commolo rerosto delesseniat. Eliquis ex eugiam, suscidu ismodoloreet at. Molum zzriurem ad tem ipit aliquat. Ut nisl erciduis at. Ectem dolobore vulpute feu faci endre dipsuscip el etumsan diametu mmodoloreet lore volore faccummy nulla at velit alit lorperos ad dio dolortin euis am il dolenibh eummy nonullam il et, quipit in ea faccum nos atue dolorerat la feumsandit enisim velis aut velit veros adipsusto odiamet augait iriliquisim velesse quatet alisi exero

odolestrud mincipiscing endre doluptat prat, sit adignisl utet accum volor at, quis adit luptat. Ud dolor incipis modigniat acinibh erilla adignim num nim am, commod ea aut essequate ming ea facin velis dolore magna con ulla feugait augiamcore commy nisi. Ommy nim in ea augait, quam dolore consed tetue eu faccum vel utat. Ut aci bla facip et autatis autem dolenim nit, velisl ing el er suscill utpatin henibh ese duis alit, suscil dolesto coreet et vel et nummy nulla adit lorpero odo doluptatie verosting et vel utpat volorem quat adionsent ad molore deliqui psummy nit luptat, venibh erat. ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 63

 Duissi exerat, quis nos nulla feugueros niat, quisl dunt aute te dolor si. Ecte tatisim irit erat er sum iliquat am erit adiam, susci bla faci exerilit at praestrud magnim volore tis aut nim nostio commy nim deliqui sciduis nonsequatue euip ea aut ad eugait, conse ex essi tat, quis num ipit utem dolor sit aci eros dolorperat, volor sum atumsandre magna aut nos at praestie velisl et augait. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utat uer ost init nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril 64 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat. Agna feuipisl essequis accum in utat. Andigna feuguer sustrud dolore conum ex et enisit prat vulputat iure dunt verit lutpat nullam velesto commolortie dolorpe riurem zzrit, senit nonsequis nibh er sum nim aliquis at accumsa ndrercipsum vent nullam, venis nim ipisim irit num euisis nisl ing elit wis adionullamet praestrud tie consequatue faccum autet, quis aliquat irilismolore exerat acidunt dolesto ex er incilis essim numsandrem verosto eum my nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat. Lorem eum iurer iure tatue modigna feugait eros nisl utatum ip el ex eu feui eu facipsusto ea faccums andignis dit illaore do odit ilis dipit do euis eui te feugait niamcom modolor perilluptat. To commy nim iustio duipis num nostrud magna facip euis exerosto dolor sequipit augait lor se commodo lobore dolore conse conumsandit aliquisci tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil lutatio consed tatem zzrilit aliquam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi.

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The Bond Girls

o, the series hasnt evolved socially to the point where we can speak plausibly of the Bond women. These are girls in the original, macho sense. They may be grown up (indeed, theyre big girls if you see what I mean), but they mostly havent acquired an identity. Bond wont take no for an answer, and the Bond girls for the most part dont stick to that no for very long. Certainly it took a lot of classes in gender sensitivity before movies any movies treated women as full-edged humans. Theres a quick ash in the 1964 lm Goldnger, in which Bond runs across his CIA pal Felix. He introduces him to the young woman who has been giving Bond a massage called Dink. Felix, say hello to Dink. Dink, say goodbye to Felix. She begins to protest. He gives a tap on the bum. Man talk, he explains. Over a number of lms there were always two Bond girls. There had to be a second one, because the rst one invariably came to a bad end. Take the example of Goldnger. Bond meets an accomplice of Goldnger, Jill Masterson (Shirley Eaton), and easily converts her to his side, and then of course beds her. The indiscretion costs her dearly, as she nds herself covered with gold paint, quite dead (there is a cock and bull explanation involving skin suffocation). The

second Bond girl of the film, shown below, has the evocative name of Pussy Galore (played by Honor Blackman of Avengers fame). It is fairly solidly established, or as solidly established as it could be in a 1964 Hollywood picture, that she is a Lesbian (she runs an all-girl ying corps, and she assures Bond that you can turn off the charm, Im immune). But one forced kiss later Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis

ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl et et volorper si blam, quatem init, consequi bla coreet, vent iriusci bla feu feuipis modolore dolesse conulla feuis adit laor ilit lutpatin el in velisci ncilla facinibh eugait adipit nibh et nis nonsed magna feummod do coreros eugait il ex eugait wisi ex et num quisim aut atum del del dolobore eros endigniatue dolor secte ex eugiat. Illa corperostrud tisi. Rud doloreet wis alit ut lum in heniscidunt aut ing et lorper sequis non ut ilit lore facilis sequat. Duis ad dolor adiam quatiscidunt praestie er ametummod tat.

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ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 65

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exerat acidunt dolesto e x er i nc i l i s e s si m numsandrem verosto eummy nim velendre er ing euis nonulla faccumm olortionulla feuipsum eu facipis cipit, volobore erillaor in utpatie vel iustisl dipisim zzrillutetue corpera esendit ipisi blandrer susci te magna feugait vel ut iniam, velis amcore facilisl erit venit augait lute tem ing ercilit, velisci liquatuer il utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl utat, sed tio dionsendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidunt lobor iure do ero dignit ullaortion ute feugiat.

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The Villains

super hero like 007 requires a worthy adversary. The typical Bond villain is a megalomaniac who want to rule the world. If he is from an identiable country, he usually turns out to be a renegades you dont make the villain a Bulgarian if you think you can sell your movie to a Bulgarian cinema chain. Whatever the villains identity, for him to be worthy, he (or she, now and again) must be played by a first-rate actor. One reason Goldnger (above) was so good was that the title role was played by the ne German actor Gert Frbe. Subsequently he was in Is Paris Burning? playing the last German governor of occupied Paris. Hes fun to watch, though not quite enough for me to root for him to win. At upper right is the late Canadian actor Joseph Wiseman as the rst of the Bond villains, Dr.No. Of course he came to a bad end, and wasnt seen again. But he was referred to in a later lm, because his boss at SPECTER, Ernst Blofeld, wants to avenge him in From Russia With Love. He doesnt succeed. Blofeld was played by a number of actors, including Anthony Dawson (the man with the eyepatch in Thunderball) and by the formidable Max von Sydow (lower right), complete with the traditional cat, in Never Say Never Again.

The man with the prominent smile to the immediate right is Christopher Lee, who plays Francisco Scaramanga in The Man With the Golden Gun. If you think youve seen that smile before, perhaps you have. He was the star of Horror of Dracula and lesser vampire lms. His outgoing and engaging personality made him an excellent foil for Bond. Just below him is Mads Mikkelsen, who plays the terrorist financier Le Chiffre (meaning either the number or the cypher) in Casino Royale. Note the blood in the corner of his eye. He and James Bond play a high stakes game of poker at the casino of the title, with th poker game continuing even once they both leave the table. Le Chiffre has an accomplice. But whom?

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The Henchmen

henchman. Henchmen (Bond-heads actually call them that) are accomplices, or at least secondary villains, who make the sybaritic life of the main villain possible. They are menacing, amusing, and willing to sacrice themselves for the good (actually the evil) of the cause. In the picture above is, possibly, the most successful of the Bond henchmen, Oddjob. A Korean manservant to Goldnger, he is strong enough to crush a golf ball in the palm of his hand (try it, if you think its easy). When Bond rushes him, he simply bounces off. His secret weapon, the one he is preparing to unleash in the picture, is his derby hat, whose brim is not exactly soft felt. He throws it like a Frisbee and decapitates a statue, and not much later he takes on an even morestatuesque target. Of course he cares more for his boss than for himself. In the Fort Knox scene, when Bond is trying to defuse an atomic bomb (which has a convenient digital readout to let passersby know how much time they have left), Oddjob unleashes his considerable strength to prevent him from succeeding. Where do you nd help like that? The most blatant case of gay stereotyping came in Diamonds Are Forever. 68 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

id I say that a good Bond lm needed a good villain? Yes, of course it does, but it helps if it also has a good

Mr. K idd and Mr. Wynt (they call each other that) are caricatures of a gay couple. What their motivation is, Im not sure is clear, but they come to an explosive end. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse

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The Music of Bond

he right music can make a film, and directors have known that for a long time. Think about the scores from (to choose a few at random) Breakfast at Tiffany, Casablanca, High Noon, The Third Man, Life is Beautiful, Schindlers List, and the countless spaghetti westerns . The rst of the Bond lms had a couple of mood pieces from Jamaica (where it was set), including a rollicking, and ultimately sinister, version of Three Blind Mice. It also featured a lively instrumental score to accompany action scenes, to be known as The James Bond Theme. Subsequently, however, the producers of the Bond series hit on a lucky idea. The right song could turn out to be a hot marketing opportunity. Find the song, nd the artist, and build the promotion around it. The formula really came together with Goldnger, but it was already in place with the second lm, From Russia With Love. The idea was to commission a catchy song whose title happened to be that of the movie. A big name would be hired to sing it well in advance of the lms release, in order to insure that it had time to become a hit and get lots of radio play. And then, once the lm was released, potential ticket buyers would already know the title, and indeed be humming the tune. The name hired for the second lm was Matt Monro, then well-known in the UK, though not so much in North America. Monro sang the song during the closing credits rather than the open-

ing titles, a mistake that would not be made again. Starting with Goldnger, with few exceptions the sequence was the same: there would be the so-called gun-barrel introduction, to be followed by an action scene that was usually, but not always, unrelated to the main story, then the titles, featuring nude and seminude women in silhouette, while the title song was sung by the star of the hour. (Actually, there is some doubt about the semi, as you can see from the image above, from Diamonds are Forever.) Of course the song had to be more than merely catchy. It also had to lend itself to orchestration to suit different scenes in the lm. Goldnger, sung by Shirley Bassey (another UK star of the day, shown on the next page), is a powerful, upbeat song, but the melody is reorchestrated by John Barry as a tender ballad that can suit quieter scenes. Note the almost romantic arrangement, complete with harp arpeggios, during the scene when Bond is trailing Goldngers Rolls Royce on a scenic Swiss road. The James Bond Theme is the one piece that has followed the Bond franchise from lm to lm. Monty Norman composed it for piano, and it was John Barry who did the orchestration and the adaptation into its different forms. Indeed, Barry claimed that Norman got the credit for contractual reasons, but that he himself deserved the lucrative copyright. Though Barry did very well for himself, writing scores for nearly a dozen Bond films, The James Bond Theme was in all of them too, earning

Norman continued royalties, and of course continuing credits in each of the Bond movies. In fact it lent itself well to more than the signature chase scenes, because it has a distinctive introduction that can be played by itself to build tension, or even be attached to the lms main theme. The sequence is a familiar one: C, C-sharp, D, C-sharp repeated twice. John Barry, however, wrote his own theme to add tension to certain scenes, with its repeated staccato notes. Known simply as the 007 Theme, it was rst used in From Russia With Love, where you can hear it during the gunght at the Gypsy camp. Barry actually wrote the music for no fewer than 11 of the Bond lms, leaving aside the disputed Dr. No authorship. Sometimes, however, choosing the singer also meant choosing the composer. In the case of Live and Let Die, for instance, the title song was composed by George Martin, the Beatles producer. The reason: the singer was Paul McCartney. That song, incidentally, was particularly successful, earning a 1974 Oscar nomination as best original song. In the US it got to second place in the pop music charts. McCartney was rather happy with the song, and kept it in his repertoire. When he was invited to sing at the 2005 Super Bowl, that was the song he chose. The Man With the Golden Gun followed the usual formula of having a song with the same title as the movie, but theres some controversy as to which song it was to be. Alice Cooper has a song of that title on one of his albums, and he maintains that his was the song that was to be used in the lm. Certainly hiring Cooper to do the Bond song was in keeping with the marketing policy of using big names, but perhaps the producers were not familiar with the Alice Cooper sound. In any case, the title song was nally sung by Lulu, a Scottish singer with little international reputation. John Barry wrote the music, but calls it the weakest of the Bond songs. Perhaps in part for that reason, the lm was initially not well received, though like all Bond lms it made money for its producers. ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 69

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The Spy Who Loved Me broke with the formula in a different way: it was the rst Bond lm whose commissioned song had a different title. Sung admirably by international star Carly Simon, the song was titled Nobody Does It Better, an obvious reference towell, an obvious reference. Even so the film and the song meshed. The lyrics do contain the lm title, and the posters for the lm included the claim, in large letters, that Nobody does it better. With Moonraker, the marketing component of the song fell apart. The producers dithered too long before making a choice. They might have a chance to get Frank Sinatra, which would be a big catch. But well, perhaps they ought to cater to a younger crowd and use Kate Bush. But the discussions didnt lead to a contract, let alone a recording date, and there were only weeks to go before the lm launch. Finally they returned to the singer who had already done so well with Goldnger and Diamonds Are Forever, Shirley Bassey (in the picture above). But it was too late to do the proper push, and Bassey, perhaps realizing she was a third choice, wasnt enthusiastic about promoting it. Incidentally, there are two versions of the song, a ballad for the usual main titles with the semi-clad women in sil70 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

houette, and a disco version for the end titles. Incredibly, the same error was repeated with For Your Eyes Only, despite the two-year gap between the two lms. Ever eager to cater to a younger audience, they turned to Debbie Harry, lead singer of the rock group Blondie. Though Blondie did sing a song with the lms title, Harry ultimately declined the contract, and so at the last moment the producers got Sheena Easton to sing a different song with the same title. To persuade her to do it, she was given screen time, becoming the rst artist in a Bond lm to be seen singing. The next lm, Octopussy, was a challenge. The title is really from Ian Fleming, who wrote a short story titled Octopussy and The Living Daylights (the second half of the title was given to a later movie). But the Bond song had to be moved up the charts where (gasp!) children would hear it. The song couldnt have that title. And it didnt, but it was a major success. Titled All Time High, it was a magnificent song for Rita Coolidge, spending four weeks at top spot on the US Billboard chart, and still played on radio even today. Would it have done all that with the title Octopussy? You think? Producer Cubby Broccoli, however, continued to see rock music as a marketing tool to push his successful 007 movies even harder. Legend has it that bassist John Taylor approached Broccoli at a party and asked, rhetorically, When are you going to get someone decent to do one of your theme songs? The result was that the song in A View to a Kill were sung by the rock group Duran Duran. It was a huge hit, fullling at the same time its purpose: to build advance awareness of the movie, and put people into seats. The Living Daylights was the rst Bond movie whose song was performed by a non-English-speaking group, Norwegian pop group a-ha (perhaps they dont like upper case letter in Norway). The score was the last one from John Barry, who had scored most of the Bond lms, except Live and Let Die. Barry wasnt the one who chose a-ha, and he didnt like

their music, choosing to overdub his own additions overtop theirs. Of course his version was in the movie, but a-ha used its own version on its album. Live and let live, we might say. The excellent guitarist Eric Clapton was asked to do the song for Licence to Kill, and so was Vic Flick. It was nally sung by Gladys Knight, and included elements from the best-known of the Bond songs Goldnger. The producers, of course, had to pay extra royalties. One innovation: Patti LaBelle sang a different song, If You Asked Me To, over the end credits. That would later become a major hit for Cline Dion. Goldeneye, the rst Bond lm with Pierce Brosnan, had Tina Turner singing a song from Bono and The Edge. By this time there was no longer much collaboration between producers and artists, and none of the song was adapted to the score. As a promotional vehicle it fell at. Tomorrow Never Dies had two songs, at the beginning and end, sung respectively by Sheryl Crow and k.d. lang. Curiously, the title of the lm was worked into the lyrics of both songs. David Arnold had written the score of the lm, and would score the next three as well. He wrote the music for the next lm, The World Is Not Enough, which was sung by the grunge group Garbage. It was a hit, and like so many other songs helped support the lm it was written for. Madonna composed and wrote the title song of Die Another Day. It has lots of electronic elements, not the rst Bond song to have them. It got Golden Globe and Grammy nominations, but it also earned a Golden Raspberry for Worst Original Song of 2002. Madonna does that to people. Chris Cornell wrote and sang You Know My Name in Casino Royale. The songs theme is substituted for the James Bond Theme, until the end, when Bond really becomes Bond. Jack White and Alicia Keys sang Another Way to Die, the opening song of Quantum of Solace. Barbara Broccoli is in the saddle now, having taken over from her father, and it may be that we will never again see a Bond song with the same title as the movie. It was a blast while it lasted.

Software Reviews
by Gerard Rejskind and Albert Simon
performance to be a defilement of his art) that we dont know his first name. Played by Jean-Pierre Marielle, he is a lonely widower who retires to a garden shed to play his viol. A young man, none other than Marin Marais (played by famed French actor Grard Depardieu as an older man, and his son Guillaume as a youth), creeps regularly underneath the shed to listen to him, and persuades the reclusive musician to take him on as a pupil. The film is filled with solo viol music, and it became an overnight sensation. I know this, because at the time the soundtrack CD was listed at our Audiophile Store, and it remained a bestseller for as long as we were able to get it. We also then listed a recording of viol music on the Pierre Verany label (with better sound, it should be said), and that too sold in prodigious quantities. So much for its vile character! Now comes a recording of Marin Marais music that is sonically superior to either of those older recordings, and has the potential to bring the haunting sound of the viol to a new audience. Though Sainte-Colombe (the spelling on the disc is a common archaic rendition) was a prolific composer, his works are seldom played today, and we know him mainly through the works of Marais. The tombeau (tomb) is actually the title of the final movement of the Suite en mi mineur, 2e livre, one of three suites on this recording. The bass viol played by soloist Andrea de Carlo sounds not unlike a double bass, but with a richer sound, filled with harmonics, sounding at times like a cello. Its texture is however totally different from that of the more familiar instruments, less smooth, with more string sound accompanying the deep resonance from the instruments body. If youre not familiar with the viol family (except for the viola da gamba, the sole family member that survived to be played alongside the modern instruments), youll find it disconcerting at first, wondering why the double bass is being played in that fashion. Once you get used to this distinctive sound, it becomes haunting. No wonder the young Marin Marais would spend hours under that shed (he rather liked SainteColombes daughter too, but lets not get sidetracked). The bass viol has plenty of body, but it is with the appearance of Leonard Garcia Alarcos harpsichord and Dolores Costoyas theorbo that the music really lifts. A second bass viol, played by Sergio Alvarez, joins in for the Suite en r mineur, 1er livre. The sound on this recording, done in Switzerland in 2004, is lively, with fine focus and detail, but also a wide reverberant field that gives the music a three-dimensional aspect. I doubt there is a better introduction to this often neglected instrumental clan. Of course, if you are already an enthusiast, you need no invitation.

Tombeau pour Mr. de S.te Colombe Andrea de Carlo, et al. MA M069A Rejsk i nd: Ma ny people, on f irst encountering the string instruments known collectively as the viol family, assume that they must be the ancestors of the modern (well, early Baroque) string instruments: the violin, viola, cello and double bass. In fact the viol is to modern strings as the chimpanzee is to humans: a cousin with a common ancestor. The supposition is maintained by the fact that a bass viol looks much like a modern double bass. There are in fact notable differences. The viol has frets, like a guitar, and gut strings rather than steel. The tuning scheme is different as well. And its distinctive soundwell, those who find it grating suggest that it is not happenstance that the word viol is pronounced vile. In recent years, however, there has been renewed interest in and taste for this ancient family of instruments. That interest was accelerated by A lain Corneaus 1991 film Tous les matins du monde (English title: All the Mornings of the World), in which the major characters are Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe (to whom this CD pays homage), and Marin Marais, his pupil, and the composer of the music on the disc. Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe is so little known (he considered public

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O Nata Lux Musica Intima Atma ACD2 2577 Rejskind: Tired of the usual Christmas recordings, featuring Rudolph the RedNosed Reindeer, Ill Be Home for Christmas and (gack, choke!) The Little Drummer Boy? Relief is at hand. Over the holidays, put on this CD, and hit the repeat button. Its my experience that the less talent ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 71

singers have, the more the (presumably desperate) producers feel the need to pile on the massed strings, the jingle bells, and the percussion. On the other hand, if you have a number of truly talented singers, competently conducted, you dont need accompaniment at all. Those are the winning conditions on this recording, which features a dozen singers (three each of sopranos, altos, tenors and basses), in Christmas songs you may not hear over shopping mall loudspeakers. Musica Intima (the name says it) is a Vancouver choral ensemble that doesnt always sing a capella, nor is it specialized in traditional music. It has in fact premiered a number of works of new Canadian composers. On this recording their arrangements, often in canon form, are so well done that you may get two or three songs in before you realize that there is no accompaniment. Though the CD begins with the familiar In Dulci Jubilo, and it includes Ce matin, jai rencontr le train (if you cant place the title, the melody will be instantly recognizable as The March of the Kings), there are much newer pieces as well. Benjamin Britten contributed two: Jesu, as Thou Art Our Saviour and A Hymn to the Virgin. Gabriels Message is a unique arrangement of a traditional Basque carol by Jonathan Rathbone, former director of the scat singing group The Swingle Singers. Sing Lullaby meshes perfectly with traditional music, though its flowing verses are from 20th Century composer Herbert Howells. Adam Lay Ybounden features a telling of a chapter of the book of Genesis, probably from a 15th Century wandering minstrel, with wholly appropriate music by modern composer Matthew Larkin. The voices of these singers are a pleasure to hear. Recorded by AnneMarie Sylvestre at a church in Mirabel, Qubec, that has been used for many exceptional recordings, it sounds very fine too, with a lot of space around the singers. With Christmas coming up, it may be time to retire Bing Crosby. Tonos y Tonadas Ensemble La Chimera MA M072A 72 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

Simon: Unlike the rest of Europe, writes Adrian Besn in the highly informative liner notes, Spain was not producing Baroque instrumental music, and both highbrow and lowbrow literature existed side by side. Tonos y Tonadas (tones and ballads) seeks to offer us a glimpse of the musical world that existed in the last 30 years of the 17th Century. An interesting connection is reflected here between a declining Spain and its new colonies in the Americas, more specifically an area along the Andes mountain chain. As I expected from the folks at MA Recordings who really know how to record st rings accurately, incidentally the sound is wonderfully reproduced, no excesses, no need to impress their audience, just a superbly played set of songs and ballads from another era, sung by Barbara Kusa and Isabel Monars outstanding voices. Luis Rigous powerful voice has an impressive presence in some of the songs, and Adrian Besns recitations are an interesting addition. Everything sounds so polished and impeccably done. The Ensemble La Chimera is a treat to listen to, with modern and period instruments featuring lute, guitars, viola da gambas and southamerican (yes, thats the way they like to spell it) flutes. However, considering that the style is in such contrast to the religious music of the time, I cant keep from imagining how they might have sounded at that time; I see two musicians, a singer with an unpolished yet highly expressive voice, belting it out at passersby in narrow dirt-covered streets, accompanied by a lone guitar. Or were they going at it late

at night, attempting to be heard over a noisy crowd at the local inn? If youve ever listened to the original street version of Ariel Ramirezs Missa Criolla and compared it with the relatively more recent, polished operatic version featuring tenor Jos Carreras, youll know what I am talking about. (By the way, if you know that piece, youll notice similar percussion sounds heard twice on this CD.) You should also know that I love both versions, just as I love this version of a distant past when this music was closer to people and was meant for ordinary folks. True folklore with superb sound. And as I am writing this, the air around me is filling up with the sounds of fluttering flutes and deep percussion. Thats how this album ends, with the instrumental piece aptly named Canto al silencio.

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Llama Silvia Prez Cruz, Ravid Goldschmidt MA M070A Simon: Dont raise the volume as you hear the first soft notes on the hang appearing in space between your speakers. Wait, and let the voice of Silvia Prez Cruz rise, and suddenly reach the poignant level of Flamenco laments. It is an acquired taste, they say. Do you like it? If you do, it gets better as you discover all the possibilities of this unusual combination of voice and hang. Based on the steel pan drums of Trinidad and Tobago, the hang is built to perfection by two instrument designers, Felix Rohner and Sabina Schrer of PA NArt in Bern, Switzerland. It is played here with finesse by the swift

hands of Ravid Goldschmidt, a young and talented Israeli musician, now living in Barcelona, who loves playing in the streets, favouring direct contact with his audience. He met Silvia Prez Cruz at one of the local concerts. She also plays saxophone, and she is involved in an allfemale flamenco quartet known as Las Migas. The sound of the hang and the textures that Ravid produces with his hands on his instruments are unlike anything you can actually compare to. There are many tracks where his solos appear to be interludes, so to speak, but they are wonderful pieces on their own, often introspective. Im sure youll be back again and again to hear them, as I was. Silvias young voice is on the light side, but it sounds original, with superb control, best suited for Flamenco and Fado. It has that haunting quality that tears the air in sheer desperation. However, it needs to acquire more maturity, more living, more suffering, I would say. And it is not suited to jazz. Her interpretation of a jazz piece called Smiles was disappointing to these ears. Youll find the sound on this CD an unmitigated pleasure on each track, with natural reproduction of the performers within the recording venue, a little church in the Barri Gotic quarter of Barcelona. A nd as usual for MA Recordings, the best technical means were used to produce an album intended for the most discriminating audiophiles.

Brittens Orchestra Stern & Kansas City Symph. Reference Recordings RR-120 Rejskind: I must confess to having past reservations concerning the music of

Benjamin Britten, and especially his operas. However I have always had the greatest enthusiasm for The Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra, composed just after the Second World War for a British educational film, to be called Instruments of the Orchestra. It takes up a third of this quite short CD, and I would rate it as the best version I have heard of this attractive suite. For t h is com m ission, Br it ten borrowed a melody by 17th Century British composer Henry Purcell, from incidental music for a play with the disturbing title of Abdelazer, or The Moors Revenge. It was of course common at one time for composers to borrow themes, with or without credit, and to write variations around them. I should warn you that, if you choose to look up the original, you will have difficulty putting it together with the brilliant Britten suite. Purcell (possibly the last great British composer before the 20th Century) may have provided the seed, but the work of genius that is the Guide is entirely Brittens own. I have not seen the film, and I rather wonder how much impact the antiquated sound, played through the small openbacked speakers of the typical school auditorium, might have had on the young persons of the title. I know that, as a child, my own exposure to symphonic music was through such primitive gear, and the sound was so unlike that of real music that it gave me little taste for further exploration. When, in my teens, I finally heard the sound of a live symphony orchestra, it was so new an experience that I was left thrilled to my very core. It was, I believe I can say, a life-changing event. The suite is a delight, a voyage of discovery through the resources marshalled by a modern symphony orchest ra. More t han si x decades after its composition, it remains a persuasive plea for the continuation of acoustic music, which sometimes seems menaced by genres with much less vivid colors. Playing it must be a treat for the members of the Kansas City Symphony too, because each section gets a solo. All of them rise to the occasion, all for our greater pleasure. The suite is followed by the Sinfonia

da requiem. It is not in mourning for the millions of deaths that were the legacy of the War (that would come in Brittens War Requiem composed after the end of hostilities), but rather in mourning for the millions yet to die. Oddly, it was commissioned by the Japanese in early 1940, when Japan was busy with China but was not yet an official member of the Axis. The commission was ostensibly in honor of the 2600th anniversary of its ruling dynasty, but Britten, a pacifist and conscientious objector, could see where events were leading, and he added the word requiem to the title in order to make it a plea for peace. Japan rejected the work, not for its implicit anti-war message, but on the dubious pretext that it borrowed titles from the Christian liturgy and was therefore insulting: the three movements are titled Lacrymosa, Dies irae and Requiem ternam. The young Britten (he was then 26) wrote a conciliatory letter, but shortly after Japan signed its pact with Germany and Italy, and there could be no more talk of peace. The work was finally premiered by the New York Philharmonic. There can be no doubt that, like the later War Requiem, this Sinfonia is a work of genius. The Lacrymosa enters with powerful drums that shake the hall (the drums of war?), followed by a chant of great sadness from the lower strings, with new occasional outbursts. The Dies irae (which means literally days of anger) is a rapid movement for lower strings and trumpet, rapid and terrifying. Here too, the tympani contribute to the foreboding, even the terror. The final movement is a sorrowful extended melody that must not have pleased the Japanese much as they were preparing to participate in the worldwide holocaust. No wonder they rejected it! Not w it h s t a nd i n g m y e a rl ie r comment on Brittens operas, the suite from Peter Grimes is of great beauty (Ive actually seen the opera, sung by Brittens favorite tenor, Peter Pears, and it didnt leave me the same impression). The violent and unappealing story of Peter Grimes may have affected me, but the fictional character Grimes was a fisherman, and the suite evokes the sea. These orchestral excerpts include the ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 73

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Four Sea Interludes and the Passacaglia. As in the other works, the music showcases Brittens remarkable mastery of the orchestra. T he K a n sa s C it y Sy mphony, conducted in masterly fashion by Michael Stern, is pretty much flawless in its execution of music which depends so much on the beauty of the instruments, and of the powerful effect they have on the emotions.. The sound is of great help as well. Keith O. Johnson has brought forward all of the many colors and shades of the orchestra in most subtle fashion, though there is nothing subtle in the percussion and full orchestral crescendos that are found in all three pieces. I listened to it with full HDCD decoding, and more than once the music and the sound gave me major goose bumps. Perhaps symphonic music is not your thing, but pick up a copy anyway, and spend some time with The Young Persons Guide to the Orchestra. Perhaps youll have the epiphany I did, and if you do, it can change your life. Dont say you werent warned.

West of the Sun Joel Fan, piano Reference Recordings RR-119 Rejskind: The New York-born Fans earlier recording for Reference, World Keys (RR-106) was sensational, and brought him to the attention of a wider public, beyond the concertgoers who knew very well of what he was capable. Of course Fan is hardly a child prodigy. Despite his youthful looks he is now 40, and he has a lot of playing time behind him. That experience explains his awesome musicianship, but also his natural sensitivity to the emotional side 74 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

of music, and control of fine nuances. World Keys revealed his eclectic side, because the pieces selected from the usual West European repertoire were accompanies by ot hers from such countries as Turkey and Egypt. This time he has selected music from a little farther west, specifically from the Americas, Of course that is a rich treasure, perhaps too much to serve as the source for a single album. It made me think of an album I once ran across titled Piano Music of 18th and 19th Century Europe. It lasted all of 40 minutes! Joel Fans playing is still superb, at once sensitive and effortless, with a mastery of rhythm, which figures prominently in several of the works he has chosen, The choices are, to my taste, uneven, and I was less enthusiastic than I had been about his inaugural disc. My favorites first. Brazils Ernesto Nazareth contributes a tango, Vem c Branquinha. The booklet notes list Scott Joplin as one of his influences (along with Chopin), and thats no surprise. I loved the offbeat Suis moi! Caprice from Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who was sort of a rock star before his time in 19th Century New Orleans. Villa-Lobos Chros No.5 is always a pleasure to hear, in whatever form it is presented. There is also a lovely piano Sonata (the Opus26) by Samuel Barber. Two women are represented. Amy Marcy Beachs poetic Firef lies is a delight, and makes one wonder whether she might be yet another example of a composer overlooked because of her gender. Troubled Water is inspired by the Negro Spiritual Wade in the Water. It is from Margaret Bonds, mentioned as the first Black American to solo with the Chicago Symphony. It is very much worth repeated hearings. On the other hand I was looking forward to a milonga prelude from Astor Piazzola titled Floras Game. It turned out to be more chaotic than Piazzolas music usually is, without a clear rhythmic line, and it left me cold. Also on the album is a piano sonata by Argentinas Alberto Ginastera and Nine New Bagatelles from modern American composer William Bolcom. The HDCD sound is, of course, very clear. Fans Steinway is farther back

and more reverberant than if he were in the room with us, but the sound is clearer and more detailed than if one had good seats to a concert.

Its Never Too Late Dan and the Electros Opus 3 CD22091 Rejskind: So whats going on at Opus3? Are you nostalgic for the days when Jan-Eric Persson would chase away with a stick any musician who didnt play a purely acoustic instrument, and would spend most of the first day finding exactly the right place for his two (not one, not three) microphones? Well, that day moved into the past tense a while back. It was years ago that Jan-Eric first included Blues numbers with such instruments as electric organ. Electric guitars and bass? Hes done not one but two albums with eclectic guitarist Peder af Ugglas, who definitely knows why his guitars have cords. Now, welcome to Opus3s very first rocknroll album. Act ually its billed as a tribute rocknroll album, though whom its a tribute to is left to your imagination and perhaps to your musical memory. The specific billing is as The Dan & the Electros Inspiration Tour 1954-1963. Why those years? It seems obvious. The year 1954 saw the musical tsunami that was Elvis Presley. And 1963 was the final year for pre-Beatles rock. After that, you couldnt play the same way ever again, except perhaps in taverns. So what we have here is a group of Swedish musicians (including the Dan of the title, Bert Dan stlund) playing original soft rock pieces that are meant to evoke memories of a simpler time.

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 If you ask me the theme doesnt work at all, at least not as a tribute album, but that may not matter, because its hugely entertaining, and if there had been this sort of music around when I was a kid Id probably have bought it. The instruments include stlunds Fender Stratocaster, a Hammond L-100 organ, a tenor sax, a 1961 Danelectro bass, a harpsichord (and why not?), an upright piano with thumbtacks shoved into its hammers (on Greyhound Ride), a normal (grand) piano, and oh yes a couple of female singers (on Hey Man and Downbeat), plus banjo andIm probably forgetting something here. The sound is lively (this is an SACD after all), with just enough of the slightly raw early rock sound to add pseudoauthenticity to the production. It may not be vintage Opus 3, but heck, I liked it.

for Cheeks startling sax exclamations. As for Crump, he maintains a strong rhythm in counterpoint to Cheeks sax and Chapins singing. Stevie Wonders songs probably dont require much in the way of introduction. Included in Chapins reinterpretation are Master Blaster, Higher Ground, Shes Gone and Big Brother. Chapins voice is strong and clear, and youll discover, if you didnt know already, that Stevie Wonder is no Moon-June songwriter. He has things to say. The recording was done with a modified version of the celebrated Soundfield microphone, a sort of 3-D evolution of Alan Blumleins coincident pair recipe. Not only is it clean and natural, but the sense of real space is about as good as youll find on any recording. This recording is a winner, and I recommend it in the highest terms.

ReVisions Jen Chapin Chesky SACD347 Rejskind: Singer Jen Chapin comes by her musical talent honestly, which is to say genetically. Her father is singersongwriter Harry Chapin, and her mother Sandra was his frequent lyricist (they co-wrote the hit song Cats in the Cradle). In this remarkable recording she puts her strong voice to work in singing a dozen of Stevie Wonders best songs. These are not cover versions, but actual (to use her word) ReVisions. The accompaniment is simple, but it is all the more powerful for its simplicity. On either side of her are the bass of her husband, Stephan Crump, and the saxophone of Chris Cheek. You could buy the album just

Love is the Answer Barbra Streisand Columbia 48283 2 Rejskind: One of Barbra Streisands concert tours bore the title Timeless, and she truly does appear to live outside of time. She is now 67, and she is not diminished in any sense. She just keeps getting better and better. Her vocal range has evolved downward into chesty tones she once could not have reached, but her range goes as far up as it ever did. Not only can she hit the high notes she doesnt have to talk her way through difficult songs, the way even many younger singers must but she can hold a note longer than seems humanly possible, and she doesnt even let the strain show. But I realize Im misrepresenting her, because I dont mean to suggest that

she sings really well for her age. If she were shy of her 30th birthday, I would still rate this as one of her best albums ever. One caution before I proceed, though. Dont take this CD to the cashier unless you see the mention that its a double CD. Theres only a couple of dollars difference between the single album and the double, and if youre like me youll listen exclusively to the second CD, which everyone has been calling Barbras jazz album. Heres why. The recording was produced by Canadian jazz pianist Diana Krall, and Kralls piano accompanies Barbra on most of the songs, sometimes with bass, acoustic guitar, and the subtlest of drumming. But thats the second CD. Barbra Streisand is a major international star who can expect to sell millions of records, and most of those million purchaserss dont listen to jazz. And so on the first CD (the only one if you snap up the wrong version) there will be extra layers of orchestration that everyone expects on a mainstream album. There will be strings added, to sweeten the sound. True, the sweetening is closer to Aspartame than to fructose, but what are you gonna do? Most of the songs are ballads, something Streisand has always done with exquisite style and emotion. My favorite (which we pressed into service in some of our equipment reviews in this issue) is Jacques Brels Ne me quitte pas. The English version is titled If You Go Away, but she sings one verse in the original French. This classic song, the story of a jilted lover who will do anything, anything, to keep her lover, is achingly moving if it is sung with an understanding of that story. Barbra uses her astonishing control of tone and pace to add an extra poignant touch. Listen to the way the song endsyouve never heard even Barbra Streisand do something like that. Other particularly beautiful songs: Heres to Life, In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning, Make Someone Happy and Smoke Gets In your Eyes. But in fact its good from first to final track. The first disc? Offer it to someone you know, someone who if I dare say it has no taste. ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 75

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the 60s, she says. My initial impression was that she sang it exactly the way she had on the record, when she was only 21 years old. I pulled out my original LP to check, and I was wrong. Though her vocal range still reaches great heights, especially at the very end of the song, she has a lot more weight to her voice today, adding a serious note she could not have accomplished when she was younger. Very simply, she has lived, and she can more acutely understand what she is singing about. Her performance was astonishing then, and it is astonishing now! Barbra remains of course a stunning woman, and even the sharpness of Bluray never betrays her. There is but one detail that indicates that a long concert has become a physical strain: she climbs the stairs to the stage in slippers, and on the second last step she pauses while a dresser removes the slippers and straps on high-heeled sandals. After the intermission she has ditched the sandals and continues barefoot. I did mention its a long concert, though I never got the sense it was a second too long. She sings a number of songs that are well known (and loved): Starting Here, Starting Now, The Way We Were, Somewhere, Dont Rain On My Parade. In a clip of spectators streaming in, someone expresses the hope that she will sing Happy Days Are Here Again, which he had heard her sing many years before. She does. She even sings the very first song she ever wrote (out of about ten, she claims). The title: Ma premire What long-time readers tell us they most like about UHF is that it Live in Concert 2006 But I was aware he loathed anyone who chanson. does more than review ampliers and speakers. Barbra Streisand was any good, and that prompted me to On several occasions she shares In every issue, we discuss ideas. Rejskind: Just before I received the go out and pick up an album, her second the stage with the international singing We try to tell you what you need to know, besides what CD player to CD Love is the Answer that Ive just one. I played it twice in a row, but long quartet Il Divo. Nice. buy. been writing about, I had viewed this before the end I was a convert. A few I know I sound like an unabashed Its one of the features that makes UHF Magazine unlike any other 2006 Florida concert in a superb Blu- days later I mentioned her to a colleague fan, but Im not alone. Barbra gets a audio magazine. ray production. It too is amazing. My at the CBC, where I then worked, and standing ovation after every song! When amazement is especially tied to one he dismissed her with a prediction that the camera sweeps across the spectators, particular song, which I remember in six months no one would recall who which include such recognizable faces as from her very beginnings, or at least she was. I beckoned for him to follow those of Nancy Pelosi and the Clintons, from the time I first became aware of me into the studio, where I played him a everyone appears to be enraptured, as if her existence. Forgive a digression into song from the second side, Have I Stayed being there at that instant was the best Too Long at the Fair? a personal anecdote. thing that had happened in their entire When it was over there were tears lives. I had been alerted to Streisand by a reviewer who then frequently wrote running down his cheeks. Get it. By the way, why dont DVDs I was reminded of that event, because and Blu-ray discs have numbers, the on music in both US and Canadian publications, and who loathed her with a in the second half of the concert she sings way sound recordings do? Never mind, passion one usually reserves for maggots. that very song, for the first time since youve got the title.

Not just hardware

76 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

MartinLogan Going Mid-Fi?

Is this a sign of the times? A celebrated high end speaker manufacturer, MartinLogan (it now spells its name with no hyphen) has a new Canadian dealer, and its not whom youd expect. Its Future Shop, a clone of its US owner, Best Buy. Why? For one thing MartinLogan has been spinning off its technology to lower-priced products, which might be a natural for a big box store. The argument of MartinLogans Canadian distributor, Plurison, is that this initiative will help all dealers by getting the MartinLogan brand name better known, but that specialty dealers will still carry more models, especially upscale models, the ones that the second-time buyer may be looking for. All the regular dealers need to do is stay alive until that second sale arrives. So, as you might suppose, skeptics abound. Heres what theyre saying. Even the of them live with their parents, probably wont be the best people to advise buyers on what matches what. And nally these stores are not known for carrying the sort of amplication that electrostatic speakers require anyway. But you know what? Drop by the parent companys US store (bestbuy. com) and theres MartinLogan. One other detail: Plurison president Daniel Jacques is quoted by Marketnews as reassuring dealers that Future Shop wont undersell them. But hold on a second. Canadian law doesnt allow that sort of enforcement. (Neither did US law, until a US Supreme Court decision last year.) Were guessing that if MartinLogans order books were full, this would not be happening, and well be interested in seeing how this plays out. Well check back on the Future Shop site a year from now.

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supposed economy ML products are not what a Future Shop buyer thinks of as cheap. When we checked the site it had no speaker cheaper than a $700 centre model. The trashy acoustics of a big box store are not ideal for showing off the subtleties of good sound. Their associates, whose salaries require that many

Over a number of issues, weve we were doing fairly well, choosing a and no longer a draft standard). Sure been writing about transferring music less crowded channel (channel 11) rather enough, the greater speed got rid of the to computer hard drives, as even hard than one of the default channels of dropout problem. But what we hadnt core audiophiles are doing anyway, and popular routers. We had rare dropouts, expected was that changing bands also getting it off and into a quality music though, and we thought we could solve greatly improved the sonic quality of system with a minimum of casualties. that, and other problems, by switching what the Airport Express gave us. It has In our last issue we wrote about using bands. now become comparable with what we an inexpensive device (about $100) to can expect by connecting directly to the do it wirelessly, Apples tiny Airport computer holding the music. Frankly, Express. See Music Through the Air in thats rather exciting. UHF No.87. A quick reminder of what the Airport l happen? il w hat ww o But since then weve made a happy Express is. Its a tiny device that connects n k u yo d rs e, an of cou e e, andany onusing the next pag is n discovery. Interesting though the Airto Wi-Fi of the available proe o er ad th e if th on site Just click rt isers Web ve port Express may be, it can sound even tocols on either band. You set it up with t. ad en e m o th m to o right ternet at that e. better. The trick is to switch bands. Youll g your computer using included software, ted to the In ec n n this issu co e ar well. e as if you other ads in issu e When we did our work on the last and then the computer can stream music th f onic o tr y ec an el ) h d it ai w (p it ll Try h the fu it issue, our Wi-Fi router was a D-Link to it wirelessly. Though the little box has w s rk o w urse it Of co 624+, operating on the crowded 2.4GHz We swapped out the aging D-Link a mini-jack analog output, it can also band. It had to share bandwidth with for an Apple Airport Extreme, which accept a mini-TOSLINK optical cable, a lot of trafc, including other Wi-Fi can broadcast on the far less crowded thus providing a clean digital signal for networks in the neighborhood, cordless 5 GHz band (it can actually broadcast a standalone digital-to-analog converter phones, baby monitors, wireless cameras, on both bands at the same time), using or one of the growing number of CD and even microwave ovens. We gured the faster 802.11n protocol (now ofcial, players that include digital inputs.

Better Music through the Air

tive c a r e t n i s Yes, it

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 77

HD is being used in increasingly Thiel Will Go On misleading fashion. And misleading

Now with HD Lenses

radio systems share that little drawback, but they dont use the initials HD. When we heard about the death of is not even a strong enough name, Oh yest he HD in HD Radio loudspeaker genius Jim Thiel in Septem- because it aids and abets blatant fraud. originally stood for hybrid digital, ber, it was a shock, because we knew him, Check this out: the new ZuneHD. not high definition. Its promoters are now claiming it doesnt really esteemed him, admired him. So imagine stand for anything at all (and what a the shock for co-founder Kathy Gornik shame that were misunderstanding and the rest of the Thiel team. it! That wasnt their intention at all). Theres a second reason for the HD in the Zunes name. Unlike the iPod, whose video content can be viewed only in standard (DVD) denition, the Zune, if you buy a $60 accessory, can feed your TV a high denition signal. But that claim too is misleading. Its 720p rather than the 1080p of real high denition, and even so its compressed to within a hairs breadth of its life. It may have the lines (or at least some of them), but that doesnt translate into actual image detail. This misuse of the term HD is found elsewhere: at the iTunes store, which sells or rents HD movies, or in the predictions that Blu-ray will fail because you can download HD movies over the Net. No you cant. And real HD les are so huge that there is little The Zune is Microsofts entry for the prospect of such downloads being elusive stakes in the search for an iPod available in the foreseeable future. Go with them if you want, but dont killer. In its rst incarnation it carved out a niche among music players that call them HD. And if you do, we call Unlike with were a physical magazine, which forces you to turn pages, the fraud. not iPods, but Microsoft has loftier on-line version of UHF Magazine helps you along with technology. For ambitions. The ZuneHD is intended to instance, click on any title in the table of contents (on the previous page), take on the iPod touch, and it is similarly and youll be whisked right to the article itself.it (it will The company went through a period priced. We have not reviewed Turn to the table of advertisers on page (and way, is a And speaking of iTunes of mourning, which is natural, but the not be available outside of 81 the USthat, for by the link), and click on the name of a product or company, and an an instant company will go on. Jim was meticulous reasons that turned out to be evident). Last Summer, the research rm NPD youllbut be looking at thereviews ad itself.are largely favorable, issued one of its periodic reports on who not only in his speaker designs, also Early And then try clicking on an ad problem with its the big music retailers are in the US. in his careful documentation of those but we have a serious If you are connected to the Internet, youll be taken right to the adverNotwithstanding the dark foredesigns. A team of engineers has been name. tisers Web site in your default Web browser. hired, and Jims ideas will live on. HD does not mean what you might casts of the end of Compact Discs, it. Those interactive features were for the paid version N PD says t hat format st ill domiWere delighted to hear The conassume. Indeed, it designed helps perpetrate a electronic of UHF, but they work every bit as well on the free PDF version youre trary would be a tragedy. trend to fraudulent use of what consum- nates, with 65% of music sales. But looking at. We hope you enjoy it. high definition. digital sales belong to iTunes, which ers assume means And Microsoft is not alone in this. has a whopping 69% of the digital music One reason for the HD in the new market, and a quarter of all music sales. Zunes name is the presence of an HD Walmart is the runner-up, with Radio receiver. Some reviewers, taken 14%, spl it bet ween it s CD sa les in by the name, have parroted the claim a nd it s US -on ly dow n load store. Are you getting the impression that that HD Radio is clearer than FM. Its But there are a couple of gotchas in HD, the buzzword of the half-decade, not. This bastardized USA-only digital these gures. First, the gures are only is being applied so widely its getting broadcasting service piggybacks on for the United States. Second, NPD way, way out of hand? See the headline conventional AM and FM frequencies, doesnt count the all-you-can-eat onabove? We actually saw it on the label of and uses such radical lossy compression line stores. A worldwide survey, if such a a pair of sunglasses. Cheap sunglasses. In that less than 20% of the data is actually thing could be done, might reveal a very a dollar store. transmitted. True, other (failed) digital different picture.

UHF on line is interactive!

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CD Still Rules

78 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

 Weve said it before and well say it again: cleanliness is next to...high delity! The way to clean LPs is with a vacuum machine. Lots of companies make them, and in fact the issue of UHF with plans for a DIY machine (issue58, close to being out of print) was our alltime best-selling issue. But at the other end of the price scale is the original LP cleaning machine, the Keith Monks.

Clean Machine

and iPhones, but many Canadians are wary of what the government is up to. Last time a bill to overhaul the law was presented (it died on the order paper when an election was called), it was widely seen as even more restrictive than the draconian DMCA in the US. Put a single movie you had paid for onto your iPod, and you could face a ne of $20,000 (popcorn and large Slurpee extra). And thats merely an example. Anyway, hearings were held in a number of cities. At the Montreal hear-

ings, the Union des Artistes demanded that buyers of iPods and other music players (this would take in most modern cell phones) pay a stipend that would go to compensate artists whose works are stolen by being transferred from one device to another. Sigh! We suspect the recent rumors of an impending election (squashed for the moment) have prompted Heritage Canada to put the issue on a slow simmer. But were keeping an eye on this, and we suggest you do too.

The UHF Reference Systems

Equipment reviews are done on at least one of UHFs reference systems, selected as working tools. They are changed as infrequently as possible. The Alpha system Our original reference is in a room with special acoustics, originally a recording studio, letting us hear what we cant hear elsewhere. Main digital player: Linn Unidisk 1.1 Additional CD player: CEC TL-51X belt-driven transport, Counterpoint DA-10A converter with HDCD card. Digital cable: Atlas Opus 1.5m Digital portable: Apple iPod 60 Gb Turntable: Audiomeca J-1 Tone arm: Audiomeca SL-5 Pickup: Goldring Excel Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono1.6 Preamplier: Copland CTA-305 Power amplier: Simaudio Moon W-5LE Loudspeakers: Living Voice Avatar OBX-R Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1, Atlas Navigator All-Cu Loudspeaker cables: Atlas Mavros with WBT nextgen banana connectors Power cords: Gutwire, Wireworld Aurora AC lters: Foundation Research LC-2 (power amp), Inouye SPLC. The Omega system It serves for reviews of gear that cannot easily t into the Alpha system, with its small room. Digital players: shared with the Alpha system Turntable: Linn LP12/Lingo II Tone arm: Alphason HR-100S MCS Pickup: London Reference Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono1.6 Preamplier: Simaudio Moon P-8 Power amplier: Simaudio Moon W-8 Loudspeakers: Reference 3a Suprema II Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1, Atlas Navigator All-Cu, Atlas Mavros Loudspeaker cables: Pierre Gabriel ML-1 for most of the range, Wireworld Polaris for the twin subwoofers. Power cords: BIS Audio Maestro, GutWire B-12, Wireworld AC lters: GutWire MaxCon Squared, Foundation Research LC-1 Acoustics: Gershman Acoustic Art panels The Kappa system This is our home theatre system. As with the original Alpha system, we had limited space, and that pretty much ruled out huge projectors and two-metre screens. We did, however, nally come up with a system whose performance gladdens both eye and ear, with the needed resolution for reviews. HDTV monitor: Samsung PN50A550 plasma screen DVD player (provisional): Pioneer BDP51FD Blu-Ray player Preamplier/processor: Simaudio Moon Attraction, 5.1 channel version Power ampliers: Simaudio Moon W-3 (main speakers), bridged Celeste 4070se (centre speaker), Robertson 4010 (rear) Main speakers: Energy Reference Connoisseur (1984) Centre speaker: Thiel MCS1 Rear speakers: Elipson 1400 Subwoofer: 3a Design Acoustics Cables: Atlas, Van den Hul, MIT, GutWire, Wireworld Line lter: GutWire MaxCon Squared All three systems have dedicated power lines, with Hubbell hospital grade outlets. Extensions and power bars are equipped with hospitalgrade connectors.

They dont come cheap, and you need to own a pretty good collection to justify one. That goes double for the new Keith Monks Ruby, a limited edition version of the Omni which is being made in limited quantitieslike 40! (Not coincidentally, this is the 40th anniversary of the original Keith Monks.) The Ruby could get by on looks alone. It has a rather handsome cabinet, including a matching wood lid, and a vacuum gauge styled to look like a dial from a Mini Cooper. You might be surprised to learn that it doesnt clean both sides at once, as the top Nitty Gritty does, but a two-sided machine couldnt have the finicky features of the Keith Monks. Besides, whassa matter, you cant turn the record over? The price? Not stated, but if you have to ask... Anybody hear a peep out of the Canadian government on its plans for the next copyright law? Us either. Earlier this year there were government hearings on the question of modernizing Canadas copyright law. True, the law looks a little quaint in the age of always-on broadband Internet

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Copyright Hearings

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 79

The Montreal Salon on the Move

not made of cardboard. On the down side, with the Home Show in the same venue, the underground parking lot is going to be saturated. Then again, the Bonaventure sits atop its own Mtro station. You can visit the Salons Web site, at www.salonsonimage.com. We wish the Salon well, and of course we will be covering it on line from start to nish. For our part, were not sorry to say goodbye to the Centre Sheraton.

So long Justice Audio

You probably noticed that audio distributor Justice Audio and its companion corporation, Just May Audio, were no longer at their usual place on the inside front cover of our last issue. Yes, there will be a 2010 edition of the Montreal Sound & Vision Salon. But not at the usual place. The Salon, now over two decades old, is still hurting, as are most trade and consumer shows. The past year, with its economic meltdown, has not been a good year for either trade or consumer shows. If youre going to cut back on either food or show expenses, its an easy call. And show organizers are reacting. The Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas is branching out (adding, for instance, a large Apple-themed pavilion, in the hope of cannibalizing the ailing Macworld). Its rival, T.H.E.Show, is moving from the isolated Alexis Park to the Flamingo Hilton, which is right on the Strip. And Montreals Salon Son & Image is moving too. To the building shown here. For the past few years it has been at the Centre Sheraton, which is well equipped with large rooms for major exhibitors. Only those exhibitors were nowhere to be found at the 2009 Salon. And the Sheratons small hotel rooms, with their narrow entranceways, were unpopular with high end exhibitors, many of whom were quite vocal about their wish for the Salon to return to the Delta, where it had held sway for many years. 80 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine The down side to the Delta: the paucity of elevators, and the absence of a loading dock, which made moving in and out a nightmare. Instead, the Salon will move to the Hotel Bonaventure, which shares this massive building with what was once Montreals largest convention centre. The hotel is perched high upon Place Bonaventure, long considered one of Montreals architectural jewelsand this in a city renown for its architecture. It includes a spectacular rooftop garden, and even an outdoor four-season swimming pool, in which you can swim next to a snowbank. You have to see it to believe it. The Salon will be held a little earlier than in recent years, running from March 25th through the 28th (the 25th is the trade-only day). The dates were selected to run concurrently with the National Home Show, which will be held in the Bonaventures huge convention space March 20th through 29th. Salon organizers hope that new visitors will attend thanks to the home show. The Bonaventure is of course well equipped with loading docks, and that will be handy. And, as you can guess from the photo of the complex, the rooms are

The reason? President Nabil Akhrass, nding his time taken up by the grave illness of his mother, Alice, sold the company. Alice died shortly after. Our heartfelt condolences go out to Nabil, to Nizar, whose May Audio Marketing continues in Niagara Falls, NY, and to the whole Akhrass family. So what happens now? The assets of Justice/Just May have been purchased by another prominent audio distributor, Tri-Cell, which has taken over the premises and some of the brand lines, but not the name. Nabil, for his part, has launched a new venture, Liberty Trading. He has picked up two brands Tri-Cell turned down, Atlas and GutWire, and he has just picked up Canadian distribution for Audes (the Audes Orpheus is reviewed in this issue).. Hell be at the Montreal Salon in March. New name, same stand.

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Youre lucky if the name Will the Album information? of the artist is on the sleeve (or booklet) album. come Back? of an Third, CD prices have tumbled with Actually it never went away. Sure everyone talks about music downloads, authorized or otherwise, and downloaders may think that everyone is getting their music that way, but in fact album sales of CD and the resurgent LP dominate. Only for how long? The big record labels are happy that their albums are still selling through the few remaining record stores, but downloaders mostly buy singles. Thats because they consider albums to be composed mostly of ller, often written for contractual reasons. Sure, you can buy a whole album from the iTunes store, but most people dont. Remember concept albums? Those are so 1970. But record executives tend to live in the past, as we know, and they would love for album sales to take off again. They are hatching not one but two plans to revive them. The rst is called CMX (which stands foroh, lets see now), which is yet another copy-protected format, which will include a full album (including crappy lossy cmpressn) plus album art, lyrics, videos, and other shovelware. It seems that CMX was offered to Apple, which wasnt interested. In the meantime, however, Apple is said to be working on its own (incompatible) version, called the Cocktail Project. The rumor mill has the Cocktail Project being launched at the same time as an Apple tablet computer, sort of an oversized iPod touch. There are a number of problems with these scenarios, and in fact we barely know where to begin. First, you dont need either system to get lyrics, which you can grab right off the Internet, and you can add them right to the les of some players (labels began adding lyrics to albums right about the time multi-track recording came out, since you could no longer make out the words on the songs themselves). Second, album art pretty much died as of the Beatles White Album, which was released forty years ago! Album

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demand, and these pseudo-albums will have to be pretty cheap to compete. Fourth, our take on the Apple Tablet (though we could be proven wrong early next year) is that it will never happen. Microsoft launched a product like that some four years ago, and it was a resounding failure. Apple itself once built the Newton Message Pad, a product Steve Jobs killed before his name was even on his ofce door. Fifth, it was only last year that downloadable music, at iTunes and elsewhere, began appearing without copy protection. Enthusiasm for new copy-protected incompatible formats is going to be low, low, low. What the record companies need is a time machine. Set it to arrive in 2009.

It seems more and more electronic gear runs not from an internal power supply, but from little plastic boxes known as wall warts. You know, those things that take up two outlets when youre already short of them. We often see this as an opportunity. With the power plug so accessible, you can substitute a more potent power source, as we did a few issues back with the Logitech Squeezebox. But those are ad hoc solutions. Red Wine Audio has launched the Black Lightning, a device that can plug right in where the wall wart is meant to go.

Better than a Wall Wart

And its better than you might think. Its a battery supply, with voltage regulation and its own built-in charger. We think the potential is enormous. Of course, its not what youd call cheap, starting at US$625. We wont be using it on our iPod dock! But were looking at the possibilities

Reference 3a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Simaudio. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Tri-Cell Enterprises. . . . . . . . . . . 51 UHF Back Issues. . . . . . . . . . . . 34 UHF Books. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 81

oes the quality of the parts used to build an audio product matter, or does the qualit y of the design trump everything else? Perhaps you think Im setting up a straw man, a dubious proposition put out just so I can say Doh! Not so. You can find lots of hi-fi collectors who deplore that they dont make em like they used to, and that for the best quality you have to look for speakers and ampliers built 20 years ago, or perhaps 30 years ago. True? At the very least its an oversimplication, but lets climb into that musty collectors attic and get a good look at one of those ampliers from two or three decades ago. I have pleasant memories of listening to it, and perhaps you do too, but what is it made from? Well, lets get a look at whats visible, such as the input jacks. Im used to seeing phono jacks that are shaped from nothing more than sheet metal wrapped around a plastic core, but today at least the metal is gold-plated (or at least gold-ashed, but dont expect the manufacturer to point out the difference). The ones on the expensive classic amplier? Theyre nickel-plated, or at least they were until the years began to take their toll. Dont even ask whats underneath the nickel plating. Then again, sometimes the parts werent even plated, just tinned, which made them even easier to solder to. When you think about the fact that the plugs on interconnects were then made of the same nickel or tin, its a miracle the amplier worked at all. Lets look at the output binding posts. Actually, there arent any. There arent even those dreadful guillotine connectors that were once all the rage. No, the output connectors are merely a row of screws mounted on a dark strip of what looks like Bakelite, a prewar plastic made from phenolic resin and wood dust. Nickel plating? But of course. If this is a tube amplier, pull a tube (gently!) and get a look at the socket. If youre lucky its also Bakelite. Much of the time, especially in the case of output 82 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

State of the Art

by Gerard Rejskind
and that is for the most part what made the difference between one product and a competitor. Unable to buy silver solder, Teon-insulated oxygen-free wire, goldplated anything, we looked for ways to get more out of the circuit itself. Can we stabilize the output to prevent oscillation on transients with capacitive loads? Can we design a solid state buffer with higher impedance? Can we nd a better way of inverting phase? Can we get away with eliminating inverse feedback, or perhaps use it in some other way? Collectively, designers came up with great ideas. Imagine if wed had the parts you can buy today! But what is the situation today? Certainly using rst-grade parts is an option, and a supplier is only a Google search away. Some companies do in fact seek out the best connectors, switches, sockets, capacitors and wiring, and that may allow them to make a product that will outperform anything from years gone by. Others make do with whatever is going to cost them the least, guring it cant make that much difference. And who are these miscreants? Its tempting to jump to a conclusion that might be a bit hasty. Are the Chinese the guilty parties, putting glitz on parts that work but only just? Sometimes, yes, but not always. I know of one Chinese amplier manufacturer so preoccupied by quality that it buys its connectors in the US. I also know of manufacturers in North America and Europe who spend on quality parts only where theyll show, and make do with trash inside. Yet others gure that buying the most advanced connectors and switches will make for a good product, even though they themselves couldnt get 60% on a second-year electrical engineering exam. Ultimately, everything matters. It is possible to make a system sound good without using the ultimate in parts and I know this because thats how nearly all the great classic products were made. Parts alone wont make it great, though. The designer is the magician who hopes to dazzle us. The parts he uses for his products are his magic wand.

tube sockets, theyre made of cotton paper hardened with epoxy. As for the pinsdo I need to spell out what theyre made of? And its worse than it looks. Like the phono jacks, the metal used for the socket pins is not tempered, so it will bend under pressure, but it wont spring back. With parts like that, time is not on your side. Now letss open the chassis and look around. The selector switch? Good ones would be ceramic, but what do we have here? Our friend, the cotton paper and epoxy, and the contacts are made of a metal that is now starting to look all too familiar. Of course the contacts are right out in the open, with no protection against dust. I could go on, but Im sure youve gotten the idea. In years past equipment designers didnt understand the importance of top-grade parts (I know, because I was one of them), and they probably couldnt have found such parts if they had. Of course we did know about the differences that clever design could make,

Get the 258-page book containing the State of the Art columns from the first 60 issues of UHF, with all-new introductions. See page 6.

STATE OF THE ART: THE BOOK

Countless readers have conrmed it over the years: when they get their hands on the latest issue of UHF, they open it to the last page. The reason all of them mention: Gerard Rejskinds last-page column, State of the Art. Since the magazines founding, the column has grappled with the major questions of high end audio. It has been acclaimed by readers around the world. Now, the columns from the rst 60 issues of UHF are brought together into one book. Each is exactly as it was originally published, and each is accompanied by a new introduction. Order your copy today: $18.95 in Canada or the US, C$32 elsewhere in the world, air mail included.

Why do UHF readers start reading their magazines at the back?

Some of the best-built high-end products ever made The legendary Van den Hul amplifiers and preamps at less than half the original price M-1 Monoblocks, US$7350 now C$3400 S-1 Stereo power amplifier, US$3795 now C$1900 A-1 Preamplifier, US$3895 now C$1785 See them at:

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a division of UHF Magazine contact@audiophileboutique.com (450) 651-5720

What do we know about indoor FM and TV antennas that they dont?

A lot, it turns out. With the stampede to satellite and cable over the past 20 years, the design of dipole antennas has been left to the makers of junk. It was years ago that UHF designed a high-quality antenna for its own use. It was so good we offered it for sale as the Super Antenna, and saw thousands of them sold. Why? Because its better. In this, the Super Antennas third incarnation, we buy one of those trashy antennas, rip everything out until we are left with the rods and the case, and we rebuild it. We add our own high-quality transformer (can you believe the junk antenna didnt even have one?), and a luxurious low-loss shielded cable with a 24K gold-plated slip-on F-connector. The broadband design covers the range from analog channels 2 to 69, including the entire FM band. And yes, it does a fine job with digital channels, including over-the-air HDTV.

SEE THE SUPER ANTENNA MkIII at The Audiophile Store, page 55