Mobile Fidelity continues their excellent job of remastering the Elvis Costello catalog with his tenth album.  Never charting higher than #39 in the US, this record received more than its share of critical acclaim. Though it was not terribly successful for EC in terms of sales, it joined a string of quirky releases going forward, with only the 1989 Spike showing much chart activity (Spike would be Costello’s last gold record of his career).This record is also pivotal in the sense that it features a bit more of a country groove, something else that he would dabble in going forward, including an interesting and somewhat eclectic rendition of the classic “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood.”

MoFi is to be commended for taking this imprint much further than my original 1B Columbia pressing.  It features more air and a wider soundstage throughout, with the mix more opened up, though it is still somewhat lacking in front-to-back depth.  The only complaint with this one, especially in light of the fact that it is an “Original Master Recording,” (which means MoFi used the original master tape in its production) is this: while dynamics are improved over the original, as well as overall tonality – especially the acoustic guitars – is that they didn’t split this up into two slabs of vinyl as they did on Get Happy.  – Jeff Dorgay

MoFi, 180g. LP

Recorded at the Cellar Door in Washington DC over a three-day period from November 30 to December 2, 1970, the latest in Neil Young’s “archives” series hits the record store shelves in vinyl format, lagging the CD by a few weeks. If you were patient enough to wait, you will be highly rewarded.

Music editor Bob Gendron gave the digital version of this performance a highly insightful review in Issue 59, but we did not have a vinyl copy at that time to comment on. I concur 100% with Gendron’s assessment of the performance, and the sound quality of this vinyl version is outstanding.  Mastered by Chris Bellman at Bernie Grundman’s studio, it is easily the equal in fidelity of the Live at Massey Hall and Live at The Fillmore albums.

The epitome of sparse production, the tracks all feature Young on guitar or piano, and while a hint of tape hiss creeps in from time to time, his voice is vibrant, dripping with decay and overtones, in the way that only a magnificent analog recording can – warts and all.  Fortunately, the warts are very few, and on one level, kudos to Young for leaving them in.  If this were a Katy Perry album, it would all be pristinely pitch corrected.

Here’s to a great glimpse into the past of such a great artist, and here’s to hoping Mr. Young will pull a few more recent performances out of his vaults in the months to come.  – Jeff Dorgay

Warner Bros, 180g LP

Seriously, the only thing I don’t like about PrimaLuna gear is lifting it. Recent hours at the gym notwithstanding, PrimaLuna amps keep getting heavier. Continuously improving the breed, the Dutch company keeps improving the quality of it parts, which results in bigger capacitors and beefier transformers. The DiaLogue Premium power amplifier now tips the scale just over 70 pounds. Yikes! But listening to Miles Davis’ classic album Bitches Brew float between the Focal Maestro Utopias (also reviewed in this issue), I’m not worrying about moving these amplifiers anymore. The relaxed yet resolving presentation the DiaLogue Premium amplifiers provide is sufficiently soothing to take my mind off of the manual labor.

For those of you who are unaware, my journey as an audio writer began with PrimaLuna. My review of the ProLogue One integrated amplifier was featured in The Absolute Sound just over 10 years ago. Time flies when you’re having fun. I bought that little integrated that could, and a decade later (on only its second set of power tubes), it still can. It’s been passed on to my niece, and she’s still rocking out with it after all these years—a testament to the build quality and longevity of PrimaLuna products. Best of all, the company is building the stuff even better than when I bought that review sample, so your chances of a field failure are slim to none—a great feeling when you’re shelling out close to $10,000 for a preamplifier and a pair of monoblocks. The DiaLogue Premium amplifiers are $3,199 each, and the preamplifier will also set you back $3,199.

They’re not quite the budget components that they were in 2003, but in comparison to your favorites from ARC, CJ, McIntosh and VAC, they’re still an incredible bargain for the price asked. Those nervous about PrimaLuna being a new company back in 2003 can breathe a sigh of relief. There is now no question that the company has been making all the right moves in terms of building an empire.

The DiaLogue Premium amplifiers are especially cool, because you can start with just one and run it in stereo. Should you want or need more power, add a second amplifier, flip the stereo/mono switch on the back panel and you’re rocking. A single amplifier produces 42 watts per channel in ultralinear mode and 25 per channel in triode mode. Switching to monoblocks doubles that, making this amp a nice option for budgeting future system upgrades.

The Magic of the EL34

The enchanting midrange of that first PrimaLuna amplifier always gave me pause, thanks to the EL34 output tubes, but 30 watts per channel isn’t always enough to take care of business. Fortunately, the DiaLogure Premiums give you a choice of 82 watts per channel in ultralinear mode or 50 watts per channel in triode mode, configured as monoblocks.  And there’s just something so scrumptious about using these amplifiers thusly. I suspect you may just seek out slightly more sensitive speakers so that you can always do so.

While 50 watts per channel is enough to adequately drive my 90-dB KEF Blades, the additional 3 dB of sensitivity provided by the Focal Maestro Utopias is just enough to really give the DiaLogue Premiums in mono mode that extra push over the cliff and make them that much more compelling. In the context of a system consisting of a dCS Vivaldi stack, Audio Research REF SE linestage and phonostage, along with a pair of AVID Acutus Reference SP turntables, the DiaLogues are in some pretty exclusive company. And they fit right in.

The delicate acoustic guitar at the beginning of the Verve Pipe’s “Colorful” is projected well beyond the speaker boundaries, but when the driving bass line kicks in, these amplifiers take impressive hold of the Maestros’ woofers. All this from a pair of EL34-powered monoblocks is indeed impressive.

A quick switch back to ultralinear mode delivers tighter bass, but at the expense of less midrange delicacy; the ultimate choice will be yours, but I know what I love and it’s all about the midrange with these amplifiers. Whatever your reason for going ultralinear, should you decide that is your path, go all the way and replace the EL34s with a set of KT120s. Even though the power rating is no higher, a simple flip of the switch on the right side of the amplifier resets the Adaptive Auto Bias to the correct range for this tube, eliminating potential midrange distortion. The KT120 tube has a more authoritative feel, with a deeper, tighter bass response. Overall, the amplifier has more drive and slam, feeling more like an Audio Research REF amp. Running the EL34s in triode mode makes the DiaLogue sound more like an AirTight amplifier.

Listeners who find tube amplifiers too relaxed in their presentation may think these amplifiers in triode mode are even slightly more relaxed. But this sonic characteristic works wonders when listening to recordings that are less than perfect—like my favorite records from the Monkees. “Pleasant Valley Sunday” is pretty much rubbish, but the extra sweetness that the DiaLogue Premium brings to the dance really improves recordings like this (especially in digital form), making a much larger percentage of your music collection not only listenable but enjoyable. There’s no such thing as listener fatigue with these amplifiers.

Changes Under the Hood

PrimaLuna has always paid meticulous attention to detail when building its amplifiers, which are reminiscent in quality of the great Marantz and McIntosh tube amplifiers from the 1960s. The point-to-point wiring used throughout is so neatly done that you’d swear robots did it, but this is not the case. The solder joints are all perfection and there is not a hint of untidiness anywhere. These amplifiers are as beautiful underneath their hand-finished chassis as they are above.

In addition to bigger, beefier, more robust power and output transformers, the “premium” designation comes from careful refinement of the circuit, which was executed with top-quality parts—parts you’d expect to see in amplifiers with five-figure price tags. All of the critical wiring is done with Swiss-made silver-clad oxygen-free-copper wire, the input and output connectors are first rate, and there is a plethora of premium capacitors and resistors. No corners have been cut anywhere.

And what fun would a vacuum-tube amplifier be without at least considering a bit of tube rolling? This is a bit tougher with power tubes these days, as vintage EL34s can be difficult to find, and expensive when you do find them. It’s not uncommon to spend $400 to almost $1,000 on an awesome set of NOS output tubes. Rolling in a set of Siemens and GE 6CA7s (a suitable substitution) proves sweet, eliminating grain from the presentation of the upper registers in a way that today’s modern tubes just can’t.

Fortunately, the DiaLogue Premium runs the output tubes very conservatively, and thanks to PrimaLuna’s patented Adaptive Auto Bias, adjusting tube bias is a thing of the past. The benefits are multiple: Tube life is extended, distortion is reduced, and the need for a matched quartet of output tubes is eliminated. It’s as painless as it gets for a vacuum-tube amplifier. There is even a Bad Tube Indicator, a red LED that lights up, should an output tube fail.

However, if you aren’t feeling that adventuresome but still want to get in on the action, consider swapping the small signal input tubes. Past PrimaLuna designs used at least one pair of 12AX7 tubes, which are now becoming scarcer, and consequently more expensive. A single pair of primo vintage 12AX7s can set you back $300 to $400, but this amplifier uses six 12AU7s. And these tubes are reasonable, with cool vintage examples available for $30 to $50. But remember, standard new-edition 12AU7s are only about $20 each. Either I’m getting lazy in my old age, or Kevin Deal is supplying these amplifiers with even better tubes than he was 10 years ago. In any event, I just don’t feel the need to screw around with the tubes here.

True to the PrimaLuna party line, the Adaptive Auto Bias will let you run different tube types in the various output tube sockets, but having lived with PrimaLuna amplifiers for a long time, I know that they just don’t eat tubes, so you’ll probably never need to take advantage of this feature. Sure, it does work, but if you have a tube amplifier of any kind, it’s not a bad idea to have at least a pair of output tubes of the same type on the shelf, just in case something bad does happen.

Once hefted into place and tubes installed, the DiaLogue Premium amplifiers immediately settle into reproducing music. The harp in Lloyd Cole’s “Music in a Foreign Language” floats easily behind the plane of the speakers, sounding almost like it’s in another room, well separated from Cole’s voice and acoustic guitar. Even in the 15 minutes it takes for these amplifiers to warm up, the magic is there. Unlike a few megabuck tube amplifiers we’ve used that take hundreds of hours to sound their best, we only noticed a modest change in sound character after about 50 hours. And had we not had a pair of these, so that one could run for 50 hours while the other one just sat there, we’d never know—the difference is pretty minimal. Bottom line, unbox these beauties and enjoy them.

Grab a Pair

If there’s been a better success story than PrimaLuna in the high-end audio market over the last decade, I haven’t heard it. The Dutch company continues to make top-notch products, while refining its brand and expanding its current offerings.

If you’ve ever felt intimidated by using a vacuum-tube power amplifier, PrimaLuna takes all the hassle and guesswork out of the process. The more adventurous hobbyists can tube roll to their hearts content, and the rest of you can just use the supplied tubes and dig the music.

We are happy to award the PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium amplifier our Product of the Year award in the tube-amplifier category. A most excellent amplifier—and I suggest you get two while you are at it.

DiaLogue Premium amplifier

MSRP: $3,199 each

www.primaluna.nl (factory)

www.primaluna-usa.com (U.S. distributor)

Peripherals

In audio, like in so many other things, the seed of a great idea often sprouts before the technology of the time is able to fully express the concept. The direct-drive turntable is a perfect example. Many know of the legendary Technics SP-10 broadcast turntable, though few have heard one. Those who have will remember the remarkable pitch stability and the rock-solid bass. Today, they are coveted and being rebuilt around modern tonearms and cartridges possessing much more resolution than what was available back in the 1970s and ’80s, and to good result. However, the cost is high and there are a finite number of spare parts—not to mention precious little support. Great as the SP-10 is, owning one today is much like owning a vintage sports car: It’s a ton of fun on a sunny Sunday afternoon, but God forbid you need it repaired in a hurry.

Enter Harry Weisfeld

A visit to the VPI factory in New Jersey with company founder Harry Weisfeld reveals a massive collection of turntables. Weisfeld is particularly well versed in direct-drive models, especially the classics. His collection includes, among others, the Denon DP-80 and JVC TT-101, as well as other Technics tables. “I believe direct drive is the way to go when it’s done correctly,” he says. “I’ve always been a huge fan of the concept, but you can’t get a belt or a pulley perfect, no matter how hard you try. A belt-drive turntable consists of multiple mistakes and you’re always dealing with multiple tolerance errors. Direct drive eliminates these issues.”

Discussing the cost of the new Classic Direct, which is priced at $30,000, Weisfeld reflects on the SP-10. Because of the manufacturing complexity required to produce the SP-10, he says that, if new examples were being built today, they would be fairly comparable in price, even from a company like Technics.

Weisfeld says that the Kenwood L-O7D and Micro Seiki DDX-1000 were the impetuses for making his own direct-drive table, a process that began in earnest in early 2011. One of the engineers at a firm that produces finely machined parts for VPI, as well as military hardware, and who is a known audiophile, started a major discussion with Weisfeld about the “toughest part of a turntable to manufacture.”

The engineer quickly responded that the motor was the toughest challenge, which led to another series of discussions resulting in the design we see here in the Classic Direct, where the platter is actually the main component in the motor. In this case, the motor in the Classic Direct is an AC motor, which Weisfeld prefers over DC motors. He smiles and says, “An AC motor knows where it is, and a DC motor only knows where it was.”

The secret here is that a three-phase motor is used, eliminating the cogging effect that always plagues direct-drive designs. This uneven power delivery results in a slight unsteadiness to the music at worst and a shrinking soundstage at best. These issues are a thing of the past with the Classic Direct, as my listening quickly reveals.

Fortunately for Weisfeld, building the first Classic Direct was a labor of love for the engineers involved—it was strictly a fun project. Reflecting on the nature of the company building the motor, Weisfeld laughs and says, “The reason I won’t tell you who makes the motor for us is not a security reason; they just don’t want to become a supplier for other manufacturers.” He then proceeds to show me all of the measurement data that went into the design, from prototype to final product. “These guys measure everything, and they are thorough.” Case in point: Noise level on the Classic Direct is lower than minus 100 dB—impressive.

Blacker than Black

Initial playback of the Classic Direct at the New York Audio Show this past May was exciting, but the prototype, made using a Classic 3 chassis, didn’t really work aesthetically with the 12-inch tonearm, which Weisfeld felt was essential to the ultimate sound of the table. “So we had to do one more round of plinth design,” he says. “But the drive system was final at this time.”

The proof is in the listening. Forget all the audiophile clichés about inky-black backgrounds. The Classic Direct has a complete absence of background; it’s eerily quiet, like listening to a high-resolution digital file with the life of analog. We start our listening sessions with some vintage classical test pressings from the Classic label, and I’m immediately transfixed. There’s something dramatically different here.

Music simply emerges from the dimly lit room through Weisfeld’s reference speakers, the JBL DD6600 Everests. With dynamic range like few others, the Everests highlight the Classic Direct’s ability to remove itself from the equation and pass the music from the record groove through the speakers without interruption. The Everests sound surprisingly coherent, more like a pair of electrostatic speakers (of which Weisfeld and I are both big fans). I am spellbound by how natural pianos and violins sound in this system.

I’m so taken aback by the cleanliness of the tone that I don’t notice the cartridge mounted to the 12-inch 3D-printed tonearm, which is standard issue with the Classic Direct. It’s a Shure M97, the same one you can buy from Music Direct for $100. Weisfeld smiles again. “It’s my daily driver,” he says. “When I mounted a JICO stylus on the M97, it changed the sound completely, and it tracks like crazy. It saves wear and tear on my Lyra Atlas.”

Fortunately, the unipivot design of the VPI tonearms, with removable arm wands, makes it easy to swap cartridges—for vinyl aficionados with multiple cartridges in their collection. An additional 12-inch 3D-arm wand can be purchased for $3,000, while a standard one machined from aluminum is only $1,500—a perfect match for cartridges on the less-spendy side of the equation.

Getting in the Driver’s Seat

Once I’m acquainted with the Classic Direct, Weisfeld swaps the Shure for his favorite (and mine), the Lyra Atlas. But first we listen to Dave Brubeck’s classic track “Take Five” on tape. Quickly switching back to the Analogue Productions 45-rpm version reveals precious little loss, only in the ultimate dynamics of the vinyl not being able to stretch on the quickest transients as fast as the tape, but the soul of the music on the Classic Direct is incredibly well represented. Timbre and tonality are perfectly captured, along with the airiness of the cymbals and the rock-solid character of the piano. Weisfeld has clearly met his design goals in this respect.

Then, once we move back to the beginning of the journey with the M97, the core values of the music are still intact. Timbre and drive are especially compelling, but now after hearing the tape and the Atlas, there is cloudiness to the overall presentation. Regardless, the Shure sounds far more exciting than I’ve ever heard it before and light years beyond what it sounds like on my Technics SL-1200.

Auditioning a string of familiar rock recordings reveals the same things: a larger soundstage, wider dynamic range and a new sense of being able to peer deeply into the music—all of which are now available with the Classic Direct. The triangle in Joni Mitchell’s “Down to You” not only has an incredibly well defined space, but the decay is breathtaking, and it just seems to hang in the air forever. The rest of Court and Spark, though I’ve heard it countless times, infatuates me as if hearing it for the first time again. That’s what makes a high-dollar component special—and the Classic Direct delivers the goods in every aspect.

Led Zeppelin’s “No Quarter” blazes through loud and clear. While the Classic Direct’s speed stability doesn’t reveal itself as much when rendering Jimmy Page’s guitars, it speaks volumes with the sheer attack of John Bonham’s drums. They goes from fantastic to truly explosive, and the rest of this recording goes well beyond speaker boundaries, forming a coherent and convincing musical image.

A quick spin of a 45-rpm maxi single of Prince’s “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” reveals the inner detail in this multitracked tune, which I’ve never heard as clearly. And while the Classic Direct’s major strength is tonal purity, its incredibly low noise floor uncloaks treasure in even the most highly processed records. In this case, backing vocals, synthesizer and percussion tracks are all more evident, with their own distinct placement in the soundstage, where they have always seemed somewhat vague. You don’t have to limit your musical taste to acoustic music to really hear what the Classic Direct can bring to your system.

Two Years in the Making

After a year and a half, the design of the Classic Direct was final and all that remained was sorting out the ultimate form factor. While so many of today’s mega tables feature an excess of bling, the Classic Direct keeps it simple and straightforward. Much like the aesthetic of the Eames Lounge Chair, this table is a classic in the ultimate sense of the word, rendered in a form factor you will not tire of.

The platter of the Classic Direct is the rotor, eliminating any errors resulting from motor-shaft coupling and taking advantage of VPI’s inverted bearing as the common support for the rotor and platter. Simplicity combined with 21st-century technology wins the day—and the tolerance between the platter and the rest of the motor is only .001 inches.

This assembly is a sealed unit that weighs approximately 40 pounds and is in separate packaging from the base, requiring that the user merely connect power and gently slide it in with the supplied handle. As the saying goes, there are no user-serviceable parts inside. Weisfeld tells me that this motor is built to outlast the owner, because “we don’t want to have to fix them.” (The motor, that is.)

Historians of the direct-drive system may be quick to comment that this approach has been tried unsuccessfully before, but this time it succeeds brilliantly, hence the engineering time and resulting cost of this table. VPI’s proprietary coil technology forgoes the standard wire-wound stator found in most motors, using slotted copper laminations instead. This allows for higher coil density, in turn giving the Classic Direct tremendous torque, even for a direct-drive design. Yet, it was designed to start rotating very slowly, another aspect of successful motor control.

VPI’s familiar outer-ring clamp is the final piece to the puzzle, and if you think you can get by without it, guess again. The clamp firmly anchors the outer edge of the record to the supplied mat, making sure it contacts the platter fully, eliminating the need for one of those fancy record flatteners. It also minimizes vertical stylus excursion, thus maximizing the soundstage. The rest of the table is straightforward, with 33- and 45-rpm speeds controlled by blue illuminated buttons on the left side of the plinth.

Worthy of the Name and the Price Tag

Record after record reveals the same thing: The VPI Classic Direct is one of the world’s finest turntables. If there is a flaw in its presentation, I am not able to expose it, no matter what kind of music is played.

Crazy as it might sound to the uninitiated, $20,000 to $30,000 is really the sweet spot for what I consider a “destination turntable.” I’ve spent more than my fair share of time with six-figure tables, and much like a Ferrari, they offer a level of performance unattainable by any other means, but they are just so far out of reach to all but the most affluent audio enthusiasts that it’s not even a consideration. The ratio of $150k turntable owners to $150k system owners is tipped well in favor of the latter, so for a certain breed of audiophile, a $30k table is not out of the question, especially if you are trading up from something else.

And I must confess that my experience with this range is healthy, having lived with tables from AVID, Clearaudio, Kronos, SME and VPI, just to name a few. As much fun as it always is to proclaim something a game-changer, running down the path of adjective excess, I’ll keep my description of the VPI Classic Direct, well, direct.

It’s solid and quiet in a way I’ve never experienced, even compared to the mighty Continuum, the silly Onedof and the massive Clearaudio. If pitch stability is something you crave, there’s just something about a direct-drive turntable, even a Technics SL-1200, that grabs you instantly. The Classic Direct just has much more of it, and it’s mated to a world-class tonearm to complete the package.

The presentation of the Classic Direct is remarkably close to that of a master tape on a great open-reel deck, which Weisfeld just happens to have next to his equipment rack for his own comparisons. He smiles. “This truly was my inspiration for the Classic Direct,” he says. “Now a piano sounds like a piano.”

I have purchased products from all over the world—and have been doing so for most my life—but I have to confess some American pride here. We in the United States now have a manufacturer building a turntable that not only competes with the best tables that the world has to offer but that also excels beyond many of them.

This is why we bestow our overall Product of the Year award to the VPI Classic Direct turntable.

– Jeff Dorgay

VPI Classic Direct Drive Turntable

www.vpiindustries.com

While Audio by Van Alstine (AVA) may be a new name for many, there’s a good chance you are at least peripherally familiar with Frank Van Alstine’s work. Out of his shop in Minnesota, he spent years developing modifications and upgrades for Dynaco and Hafler equipment—and those kits are still available. For customers wishing to get hands-on with their stereo, the upgrade kits are rumored to take an already-great piece of classic equipment to an entirely new level. For those with the skills and time, these kits can provide their owners some fantastic sound at very reasonable price points.

For the fine-motor-skill-challenged folks like myself, a hot soldering iron and a lot of tiny and delicate electrical parts presents a potentially disastrous combination, and so I prefer to purchase my stereo components from the hands of the true experts. Fortunately for me, Mr. Van Alstine recognizes the many audio fans in my circumstance who are seeking great-sounding equipment without requiring a second mortgage to finance it. Building on the knowledge and insight accumulated over the years, AVA came to life, bringing with it amps, preamps and DACs.

AVA offers both solid-state and tube designs. The company’s website has a chart describing the differences between its preamp designs and the sonic signature of each. With four preamps in the current AVA lineup, I welcomed the opportunity to test its flagship, the Fet Valve CF hybrid preamplifier. Each circuit of our test unit features two 12AT7 tubes supplementing the gain stages and two 12AU7 tubes acting as cathode followers—from which this preamp gets its CF designate. According to AVA, this design represents “the very best we can currently do,” and so it is with high expectations that we at TONE anticipate hearing its sonic virtues.

Customization

AVA sells directly from its website and builds each product at the time of order. The company offers several options for the Fet Valve CF preamp, depending on the user’s needs and preferences. The entry point is the black faceplate model for $1,899. The same preamp with a silver faceplate starts at $2,099. From there, the owner has several upgrades to choose from. For those planning integration into a home theater setup, a bypass switch for the preamp is available for $50, allowing a surround-sound processor’s volume knob to act as master volume for the system. Vinyl fans will appreciate optional RIAA phono circuits, priced at $249. Inverter/bridge circuits and buffered tape output circuits are available for $199 each. And finally, a high-quality remote control with a mute button adds $299. With all the add-ons, a fully loaded Fet Valve CF runs in the neighborhood of $3,000.

Straightforward Setup

From a usage scenario, the Fet Valve CF could not be simpler. The back panel of our test unit offers a phono input, five line inputs, a tape input and output, plus two sets of main outputs. All connections are single-ended RCA.

On the front panel, from left to right, thee rotary knobs control source selection, volume and balance. Above the source knob, which selects from the six line inputs, are two toggle buttons. One offers a choice of stereo or mono playback; the other allows tape monitoring. Above the volume knob, two additional buttons control filter and low gain. According to AVA, these special settings offer the user more control over aggressive speakers and source material. As icing on the cake, the Fet Valve CF includes a 1/4-inch headphone output.

Listening

After several days of burn-in, the Fet Valve CF finally has its chance to sing. Sitting in the listening chair, I reset my mental sonic expectation to where my past experience with $2k preamps has placed it. There’s very good gear in this price range, but much of it requires some sonic tradeoff. The play button starts the music as expected, and surprisingly, it also activates my “mouth ajar” setting. The Fet Valve CF certainly offers a great first impression.

I use the term hybrid for this amp, which refers to both its sonics and its design. While the marvelous, fluid tube midrange is there, some of the downsides associated with older tube designs, like limited bass punch and definition, do not follow suit. In fact, the Fet Valve CF creates bass that’s quite deep and noticeable right out the gate.

While instruments and vocals retain a high degree of realism, there’s also a forgiving nature to the preamp’s sonic signature. Rendered digitally, some female vocal recordings, like Amy Winehouse’s Back to Black, retain a bit of grain and edge. Through this preamp’s lens, the excitement of the performance remains, while reducing these unwanted artifacts and retaining the underlying emotion of the original recording.

Saxophones and trumpets have an inherent potential for sonic sharpness. Recorded well, the sound captured from these instruments is one of incredible, live detail, but with some lesser-quality jazz recordings, a transparent window to untamed digital harshness can impart the listening experience with some unpleasantness. Striking an interesting balance, the Fet Valve CF places strident instruments in a slightly warmer light—which is not to say that the preamp creates an artificially sugary sound; to my ears, the sound remains generally neutral. Rather, it makes the best of what it’s given. Using the pass and filter toggles described earlier, the listener retains greater sonic control than most hi-fi preamps allow.

Music portrayed through the Fet Valve CF may not have the lush and nuanced refinement I’ve heard with more expensive gear, but this preamp certainly has a way of making lemonade from lemons. In addition to accurately conveying the woodiness of string instruments, the Fet Valve CF also offers a compelling representation of percussive instruments. Cymbals have the expected shimmer after a strike; snares retain the requisite rattle; triangles and tambourines have the ring they should. In general, this preamp retains symphonic music’s high degree of naturalness.

Compared with much more expensive reference gear, the Fet Valve CF creates a leanness to the sound. While it does a very good job reproducing both frequency extremes, it does have a somewhat reduced degree of richness and fullness by comparison. In orchestral pieces, the ambience of the performance hall is diminished. I also find that the width and depth of the stereo image through the Fet Valve CF is truncated. The music does not extend much beyond the left and right speaker limits. This preamp also struggles to project sound into the perceived space behind the speakers, although I will say that vocals never get recessed into the mix.

Despite these limitations, the sonic elements that reveal themselves between the speakers remain well separated and quite convincing. If forced to make a tradeoff, I’d prefer the Fet Valve CF’s large and realistically rendered sonic image—one that’s akin to stepping back several rows in a live performance—to having an artificially bloated image increasing the apparent size of vocalists or instruments. After getting used to the Fet Valve CF’s portrayal, I decide that it doesn’t reduce the enjoyment of the performance; it just puts a different lens on it.

Like the rest of the Fet Valve CF, the phonostage offers a fantastic price-to-performance ratio. While the sonic attributes described earlier remain generally consistent regardless of source, vinyl albums do take on a more relaxed musical presence though this preamp than their digital counterparts do. Considering the phono section is a mere $250 upgrade option, it’s an absolute steal. Even if you don’t have a turntable now, you might later!

Conclusions

Reviewing equipment involves critiquing the nuances of the musical presentation to determine strengths and weaknesses. But when that analysis is complete, it’s equally important to take a step back and listen to the music, not just the equipment. Does that piece of gear allow the listener to get pulled into the sound and forget the hi-fi behind it? With the Fet Valve CF, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

This preamp is one of those pieces of budget gear that excels on many, many levels. While much more expensive preamps residing in my test system may exceed the Fet Valve CF’s capability in various ways, this preamp never fails to provide musical fulfillment that exceeds expectations for its price point. It’s not perfect, but it’s also not saddled with any major compromises.

For those looking to build a home hi-fi system in the $8,000-to-$10,000 range, the AVA Fet Valve CF preamp can serve very well as an anchor component. Depending on the options chosen, $2,000 to 3,000 delivers great sound, leaving the rest of the budget for speakers, amp and sources that complement it. Do yourself a favor and keep this preamp in mind—it might just be the solution you are looking for.

Additional Listening

By Jeff Dorgay

Not quite old enough to have purchased tubed Dynaco gear new, I did spend a fair amount of time growing up with it—and I remember when Van Alstine came on the scene, offering updates that took this modest gear to killer levels. Frank has definitely taken everything further over the years, and he’s done so while keeping the costs in line.

If I had to describe Van Alstine gear in one word, it would be honest. This is well-made gear that delivers honest performance without frills. When I mate the Fet Valve CF to the Van Alstine Ultravalve vacuum tube amplifier, the synergy is fantastic, as you might expect. Using the two together with a handful of speakers, I don’t find the smallish soundstage that Jerold experienced to be an issue; it may have been system synergy. With the Fet Valve CF, everything from AVA’s own amplifier to a few examples from Pass Labs, Simaudio, Octave, and Audio Research all reveal the same big soundstage.

Van Alstine offers a 30-day trial on all of its gear, so you’ve got nothing to lose. I suspect precious few of these get sent back. This preamplifier is a proud addition to my list of Publisher’s Choice Awards for 2013.

Audio by Van Alstine Fet Valve CF Vacuum Tube Preamplifier

MSRP: Starting at $1,899

avahifi.com

The guys at Audio Vision San Francisco have lost their lease after years in their location on the corner of Pine and Van Ness streets in downtown San Francisco.

They’ve only got a few months to find new digs, so now’s the time to get a great deal on some of their sample, demo and used gear so they don’t have so much to move!  You’ll get a great deal and help keep hifi alive in the Bay Area.

Or click on the graphic to donate to their kickstarter campaign.

Thank you for the continued support!

Back when our publisher and I were Bart Simpson–like teenagers disrupting our high school electronics class, we still wanted a great system but had no dinero.  The few things we had breadboarded together hummed like a swarm of bees when a turntable was brought into play, and we scratched our heads.  The doofus who was our electronics teacher wasn’t much help, so we turned to the world of kits, figuring someone had built it right once, right?  So we had to be able to make this work.

A hundred bucks back in 1976 was almost a month’s worth of flipping burgers. Fortunately gas was only about 40 cents a gallon, so our publisher scraped together the dough to buy the PAT-5 kit, which would be replaced the following year by the PAT-5 bi-FET version, which swapped the op amps for ones with FET transistors in the input stage.  Yes, audiophilia began at a very early age.

The preamplifier was straightforward to assemble, and the press of the day gave it rave reviews, claiming it a “major improvement” over the PAT-4 preamplifier, introduced in 1967, which used bipolar transistors.  FETs were all the rage in the mid to late ’70s, with most manufacturers spouting that FETs would be the logical replacement for vacuum tubes.  And being nerdtrons at the forefront of science, we certainly didn’t want vacuum tubes in our stereo system.  Hah.

The clean example you see here was purchased on eBay for 40 dollars, (with free shipping) and miraculously fired right up on arrival.  Its gold faceplate is in excellent shape, and a “kit” sticker on the chassis underside indicates that someone actually built this thing.  The job is a tidy one, which probably accounts for the quiet phono stage – but I digress.

There are plenty of old electrolytic capacitors that could be replaced, but a few more beers sound like a lot more fun.  Perhaps during one of these rainy winters in the Pacific Northwest, I’ll talk our publisher into helping me.  Just like the old days.

Back to the future, I mean present

Today the humble PAT-5s have been eclipsed, but you can find them in the used bins for about 60 dollars.  Not bad depreciation for almost forty years.  And speaking of audiophilila, Frank Van Alstine, the man behind Audio by Van Alstine, was just beginning to make a name for himself providing updates for Dynaco components – one of the first modders to be sure.  He’s still at it, offering his Insight update for the PAT-5, with virtually all of the internals upgraded, to provide a smashing preamplifier for only $799.  We’ll be examining that in the near future, so stay tuned.

But for the tight-budgeted music lover who craves good sound, a PAT-5 is still a great way to begin your audiophile journey, especially if you’re trying to add a turntable to the mix.  The MM stage in the PAT-5 is way better than anything you’re going to find for 150 bucks at retail.

Tone controls?

That’s right, tone controls.  Fortunately, they are switched out of the circuit by default and the old carbon potentiometers add a fair amount of darkness to the overall sound, so unless you have really shabby speakers, just forget about these.

But what the PAT-5 lacks in neutrality, it more than redeems itself with major control flexibility.  You can plug in two turntables and four high-level sources with dual tape monitoring functionality.  There is even a high-level speaker selector, so you could run two pairs of speakers from your power amplifier via the PAT-5.  Pretty cool for those running a garage or retro man-cave system.  Now you can switch between your JBL L-100s and Pioneer HPM-100s with ease.  All that’s missing is a neon Bud sign.

Our readers who are more inclined towards personal listening, i.e., with headphones, will be pleasantly surprised by the onboard headphone amplifier lurking under the hood of the PAT-5.  Again, way better than anything you’re going to find for 60 bucks new.

Jewel in the rough

Add your favorite inexpensive power amplifier, some cool vintage speakers and you’re rocking the casbah.  This particular PAT-5 is annoying my neighbors happily via a pair of JBL L-166s and an SAE 2200 power amplifier, with a total system cost of around 500 bucks, including the cost of the Technics SL-1200 table I picked up at a garage sale.

Looking to start a hifi journey on a happy-meal budget?  I highly suggest grabbing a PAT-5.  They are cheap and plentiful.  Not a bad way to start your audiophile journey, or learning the ropes on modding hifi gear.  Who knows, you might just become the next Frank Van Alstine.    -Jerold O’Brien

The second I queue up the Afghan Whigs’ album Gentlemen, I know these speakers are special. The reproduced soundstage on this record is massive, with the wind in the background of the opening track, “If I Were Going,” sounding much more expansive than I’ve ever heard it, save perhaps what I experienced at the Boulder factory last year via the Grande Utopia EM speakers and the prodigious Boulder 3050 monoblocks—the most compelling audio system I’ve yet experienced.

Yet slumming it back at my place, with the Pass Labs Xs 300 monoblocks and the Maestro Utopias, a bargain at $60,000 per pair, I’m getting in the ballpark. As soon as the drumbeats hit hard on the title track, we are indeed getting serious slam. These speakers move major air without fatigue, distortion or coloration. They are marvelous. Sure, the Grandes are even more amazing, but you need the room to let them breathe and the rest of the system has to be equally astounding to really allow the speakers to reach their full potential.

I won’t apologize for telling you to get a pair of $60k speakers, and I don’t want to hear all the tired arguments about how you can build a pair of these yourself for a lot less money. You can’t. Sure you could buy a nicely appointed 5-series BMW for the price of the Maestro Utopias, but the hi-fi system inside is rubbish. The arguments about diminishing returns are also moot—you won’t get this level of musical involvement for $10k, $20k or even $30k. You’ll have to pay if you want to play, but the good news is that the Maestros will reward you in a way that few speakers can.

What makes the Maestros so compelling is that you can build an amazing system around them for little more than the cost of a pair of Grande Utopias. And while a $150k-to-$250k stereo system is somewhat obsessive, the $500k-plus that it’s going to take to make the Grande’s sing is a completely different realm, hence these speakers will appeal to a completely different buyer. So, if you’ve drooled over the sound of the Focal Grande Utopias, and either don’t quite have the budget or the room to take advantage of them (or maybe you’re just a bit more frugal), the Maestros do not disappoint.

Spinning AC/DC’s “Rock and Roll Ain’t Noise Pollution,” I’m again reminded of how well the Maestros can create the sheer sound pressure of a live rock concert without compression or fatigue. Even at brain-damage levels, the meters on the Xs 300s are barely moving from the center position, indicating that they are working in full class-A mode throughout my listening session.

And installing the Maestros is a breeze. Though just more than 250 pounds each, the Maestros are easy to remove from their shipping cartons. Thanks to the wheels on the cartons, you can move them to your listening area by yourself, though you will probably need a friend to help you to remove the speakers, which also have wheels, and get them into a rough position.

Focal’s manual is thorough in describing setup and, depending on your room, you should be able to get the Maestros fairly close to fine-tuned while still on their wheels. Once satisfied that you’ve optimized the bass response for smoothness and weight, remove the wheels and experiment with the spikes to adjust the speaker rake angle to perfection.

The jumpers at the speaker’s base provide ultra-fine-tuning, allowing a modest adjustment of bass, midrange and treble energy. Fortunately in my listening room, I do not have to deviate from the factory settings, and trying them does show their effectiveness. The additional bass boost works well with the Pass First Watt amplifier and an 845-based SET amplifier, both of which are a little shy in the low-frequency department.

Sensitivity Makes All the Difference

Thanks to a 93-dB sensitivity rating, the Maestros work well with a 60-watt-per-channel tube amplifier, and we achieve amazing synergy with the 60-watt PrimaLuna DiaLogue monoblocks in for review (you can read the review here), but this gives the Maestros a different character. They lack some of the pulverizing dynamics that they do with a big solid-state amplifier, yet even hardcore hip-hop tracks, like Wu-Tang Clan’s “Protect Your Neck,” still hit with plenty of clarity at all but club levels.

The Maestros, like the Stella and Diablo Utopias that we’ve spent plenty of time with, are equally tube friendly, so don’t shy away from these speakers if you’re a tube user. The Audio Research REF 250 monoblocks, Octave’s Jubilee monoblocks and even the PrimaLuna ProLogue Premium monoblocks all work brilliantly with these speakers, thanks to their exceedingly tube-friendly crossover network.

As phenomenal as the Maestros are with big solid-state amps, I must confess my own personal bias and admit how smitten I am with these speakers when pairing them with vacuum-tube amplification. For those just tuning in to TONEAudio, I prefer my personal system to be a few molecules on the warm, romantic side of neutral, yet not lacking in cloudiness, detail or resolution—a tall order indeed.

Tubey Goodness

Yet this is exactly what the Maestros provide when paired with a great tube amplifier. The beryllium tweeter is as fast and transparent as any electrostatic speaker I’ve owned (and I’ve owned almost all of ’em), and a little bit of tube warmth makes them feel like a pair of giant Sound Labs ESLs but with major dynamics and punch. Put a fork in me, I’m done!

Sonny Rollins’ classic album Tenor Madness just leaps out of the speakers, with the Maestros painting a vivid picture of this quartet in my listening room. Bass is solidly anchored, with everything lovers of pace and timing will ever need to be ecstatic. No matter how complicated the program material, the Maestros never fail to keep up with the music, regardless of listening level.

The piano is reproduced with all the necessary timbre and attack to sound great, but what pushes it over the top is the scale. In a good-sized room with plenty of amplifier power (solid state or tubes), the Maestros reproduce scale in a way few other speakers can. This is what separates great speakers from truly exceptional ones for this reviewer, and you can put the Maestros solidly in that rare latter category.

These speakers have an uncanny ability to expand and contract with the music, no matter what the material. Where the large Magnepans reproduce everything with an expansive sound field, which is somewhat unnatural but pleasing nonetheless, a solitary guitarist playing in a church is rendered thusly through the Maestros. A group of jazz musicians playing acoustic instruments in close quarters feels as if they are right in my listening room. And Nine Inch Nails sounds like a giant wall of sound slapping me down with maximum force, as it should, but it does so without fatigue—another highly important aspect of mega-loudspeaker design.

Should you have major amplification, you will need to be watchful with the Maestros, as they can achieve such high sound-pressure levels without distortion that you could easily exceed safe levels. They pressurize the room so well and play without a hint of fatigue, that it’s always tempting to turn them up beyond a level that is prudent. Honestly, this is a ton of fun, especially with my favorite rock recordings.

Playing in the Sand

Going through the gamut of high-powered solid-state amplifiers is equally rewarding and revealing. Switching back to solid state provides a fascinating but different experience. The Maestros are such efficient conduits of relaying music, never sounding harsh, forward or over detailed. All of the amplifiers in my collection turn in stunning performances with the Maestros. The speakers’ high degree of resolution easily identifies the differences in tonal qualities between my references, the Burmester 911 MK3 and the Pass Xs 300s, when compared to the D’Agostino Momentum stereo amplifier and the Simaudio Moon 880Ms, which have recently passed through for review.

However, one of the more interesting performances turned in by the Maestros is not with a high-powered amplifier, but with the 10-watt-per-channel First Watt SIT-2 amplifier—a single-ended, class-A design featuring a single gain stage. This amplifier has always combined the virtues of a great 300B SET vacuum-tube amplifier with the low noise and control of the best solid-state amplifiers. But it still only produces 10 watts per channel. Lacking a bit of the ultimate bass slam that the big amplifiers possess, this amp lays bare the inner detail from only a single transistor in the gain path, which proves to be a revelation at modest volume levels.

Special Indeed

The guitar and banjo work on Neil Young’s Harvest demonstrates the potency of these speakers. The sheer speed of the Maestros expresses acoustic instruments in a very lifelike manner, without coloration. At the same time, the decay present in a great analog recording seems to carry on forever, with a fine gradation that doesn’t exist with a lesser speaker.

After countless hours with the Maestros, swapping amplifiers and other speakers for comparison, we come back to the initial question: $60k for a pair of speakers? And the answer is still a resplendent yes, for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the level of music that the Maestros reveal is considerably beyond that of the lesser speakers we’ve reviewed.

In terms of construction, Focal put innumerable hours of research, design, testing and prototyping into the Maestros, which goes hand in hand with the bespoke nature of all the company’s speakers. This level of passion is comparable to what goes into a Formula 1 car—every aspect, regardless of how minute, is scrutinized mercilessly by the Focal team. There is truly an integration of art and science taking place here. This is not another audio company installing drivers in a box. Nothing in the Focal Maestro is off the shelf, and none of the drivers, except the beryllium tweeter, is shared with the rest of the range.

The 3.5-way system uses two 11-inch woofers, one as a woofer and one as a subwoofer. The lower woofer vents through a downward-firing laminar port that eliminates any port noise or dynamic compression effects, and features a 2-inch voice coil, where the upper woofer has a 1.5-inch coil. The 6-inch midrange driver, though looking similar to the other 6-inch drivers in the rest of the Utopia lineup, is designed and optimized specifically for the Maestro. Both the midrange and woofers utilize the third-generation of Focal’s “W” composite-sandwich-cone technology, providing exceptional strength while minimizing weight. It’s safe to say that this is a major factor in achieving the low coloration that the Utopia range exhibits.

Lastly, the fit and finish: The mechanical construction of these speakers is sheer perfection. The gently curved cabinets have a timeless design aesthetic, and while available in a number of standard colors (black, white and red), custom colors can be ordered at a slightly additional cost. The finish applied is on the same level as the world’s finest luxury cars, and the enclosures are flawless. While these are speakers worthy of the price asked based on performance, they also exude build quality that will satisfy the most sophisticated owner, and will meld into any environment with ease.

And this is what you write the big check for—which is precisely why the Focal Maestro Utopia is our choice for Product of the Year in the speaker category.

Maestro Utopia

MSRP: $60,000 per pair

www.focal.com (factory)

www.audioplusservices.com (North American distributor)

Peripherals

Features

Old School:
Threshold CAS-2 Amplifier

By Jerold O’Brien

Journeyman Audiophile

Ortofon Cadenza Bronze Cartridge

By Jeff Dorgay

Personal Fidelity:

The Blumenstein Audio Orcas

By Jeff Dorgay

TONE Style

The Wino
Four From Spain!!

By Monique Meadows

The New Shape of Macintosh

By Chris Petrauskas

Keyport Slide 2.0

By Rob Johnson

Brian Eno Visual Music

By Chris Petrauskas

The BMW i3

Music

Current Releases:

Fresh Releases in the Pop/Rock World
By the TONE Staff

Audiophile Pressings

Jazz & Blues
By Jim Macnie & Aaron Cohen

Snapshot: Pinetop Perkins
By Jerome Brunet

Previews

Franco Serblin Accordo Speakers

Conrad-Johnson MF2550 Power Amplifier

Musical Fidelity V-90 LPS Phonostage

From the Web

Rega Aria Phonostage

Coffman Labs Equipment Footers

Reviews

Auralic Merak Mono Amplifiers
By Rob Johnson

Simaudio NEO 380D DAC
By Andre Marc

Vandersteen 1Ci Speakers
By Jeff Dorgay

Rogers PA-1A Phonostage
By Jeff Dorgay

Plinius Tike Network Audio Player
By Andre Marc

Anthem MRX 510 AV Receiver and Paradigm
Monitor 7 Speakers
By Rob Johnson

The Sound Organisation, North American importer and distributor of European Audio products, is pleased to announce a new addition to the well-established PMC twenty series of loudspeakers, the twenty.26.

The twenty.26 is the first three-way speaker in the series featuring a refined version of PMC’s Advanced Transmission Line (ATL™) bass loadingtechnology. As the pinnacle of the series, the twenty.26 features the same traits as its siblings – finesse, delicacy and musicality – but with an added ability to convey huge dynamic impact and the sheer scale of a musical performance.

Setting the twenty.26 apart is PMC’s newly developed 2” soft dome midrange drive unit, nestled between the existing tweeter and a bespoke bass driver. This driver is designed to produce an extremely natural and wide dispersion characteristic while integrating seamlessly with its other drivers.

The new 7” bass driver, designed specifically for the twenty.26, is a low mass, natural fiber cone designed by PMC to produce very low coloration and excellent transient response. Mounted within a cast alloy chassis, the new drive unit is excursion controlled by the suspension design, limiting only at maximum excursion.

As with all PMC’s passive speaker designs, the crossover is military grade circuit board with ultra-thick copper tracks and gold though plating ensures non-inhibited current flow and greater reliability. Careful component selection, precision matching and optimized positioning provide low component interaction and low coloration from the sophisticated 24dB per octave crossover.

86dB efficiency and a true 8 ohm design enable the twenty.26 to be partnered with a vast array of amplifiers from the recommended 50W to 300W with tri-amp and tri-wire terminals. Frequency response is a smooth 28Hz to 27kHz.

The cabinet features 18-25mm thick Medite™ walls and extensive bracing, particularly at the high-pressure areas on the top panel, to dramatically reduce cabinet induced coloration. The now familiar decoupled plinth, for better bass definition and HF focus, is carried over to the twenty.26, but with 30% increase in mass for improved stability.

The twenty.26 will ship in 6-8 weeks (mid-late April) in a selection of finishes including Oak, Walnut, Amarone and high gloss Diamond Black. All available exclusively through The Sound Organizations’ US network of specialty audio retailers at an MSRP USD $10,250.00 Pr.  Watch for a full review to follow shortly after introduction…

The Vandersteen Audio speaker lineup continues to evolve as a result of the research & development efforts that delivered the patented carbon-fiber Perfect-Piston™ drivers used in the flagship Model 7.Vandersteen’s Treo loudspeaker is now available in an optional Treo CT version (Carbon Tweeter), which is a $1,500 upgrade that features the superb Carbon Tweeter from the renowned Model 5A Carbon.  The Treo has an MSRP of $6,490 per pair and the CT version, $7,995 per pair.

Carbon driver cones offer the pistonic linearity of metal drivers without the unnatural sonic colorations inherent in metal drivers. While the Perfect-Piston Tweeter used in the flagship Model 7 is the fully embodied ideal of high-frequency purity and resolution, the Treo CT delivers a surprising amount of the air, space and natural purity previously heard only in Vandersteen’s top speaker models: the Quatro Wood CT, Model 5A Carbon and the Model 7.

The Treo is essentially a passive version of the Quatro Wood CT, sharing the same driver complement sans the powered-bass system. It too is offered in an array of wood finishes in a strikingly attractive form factor.  Like the legendary Model 2, the Treo is a paragon of cost-effective performance that’s made in the USA, but in an elegant outer package.

The Treo is a time- and phase-correct full-range loudspeaker. Because such great demands are placed on the drivers in Vandersteen’s first-order speaker designs, the Treo’s drivers are the kind of highly advanced transducers typically found in cost-no-object designs. The proprietary transmission-line loaded tweeter and Vandersteen’s proprietary Reflection-Free 4.5” midrange driver break up energy from behind these drivers before they can pass directly back into the room and to the listener’s ears. The 6.5” Tri-Woven woofer offers superior transient response and definition in the crucial lower-midrange/midbass frequencies, with the bass foundation supplied by the ported, carbon-loaded 8” woofer with an ultra-long motor assembly.

The impedance-compensated crossovers are ultra high-performance designs featuring extreme-quality parts, and individually tuned in an anechoic chamber. Vandersteen’s Minimum Baffle enclosures ensure maximum rigidity, free of time-smearing reflections and diffraction. All of this technology allows the Treos to offer the kind of exceptional resolution, imaging and natural musicality Vandersteens are known for.

Specifications

• Frequency Response: 36Hz – 30kHz +/- 3dB
• Sensitivity: 85 dB, 1 meter/2.83 volt input
• Impedance: 6 ohms +/- 3 ohms
• Crossovers: First order/6dB per octave, 80Hz, 900Hz, 5kHz
• Input Terminals: Barrier strips, 7/16″ max width
• Dimensions (WHD): 10” x 43” x 15”
• Weight: 80 lbs. Net
• Made in the USA

About Vandersteen Audio

Vandersteen Audio designs and manufactures time- and phase-correct loudspeakers and superb electronics.  Every Vandersteen loudspeaker is designed to be as true and accurate to the signal received from the amplifier as possible, but with unsurpassed natural musicality and “Dimensional Purity.” All Vandersteen products are proudly designed and manufactured in the USA, in Hanford, CA.   www.vandersteen.com

Audeze pronounces their name “Odd-eh-zee.” Now when seeing the same, I find it hard not to reflect back on my high school English classes and studying stories from ancient Greek mythology. Other than Homer’s Iliad, the Odyssey may be the best-known story which chronicles the perilous journey of Odysseus and his efforts to return home after the Trojan War. (Yes, the Trojan Horse was his idea.) I’ve read that Odysseus means “trouble” in Greek.  How ironic. Every time I hear a pair of Audeze headphones I find myself in trouble, wanting to reach into my wallet to buy a pair.

After releasing the highly successful LCD-2 and LCD-3 open-back headphones, Audeze refuses to rest on its laurels. Their latest headphone incarnations, the LCD-X series, include both an open-back and a closed-back design dubbed the LCD-X and the LCD-XC respectively. We enjoyed the chance to hear the LCD-X, and with their other open-back models on hand, it’s a delight to hear them head-to-head – literally.

Setting Sail

On arrival, the LCD-X comes in a black, foam-lined Pelican case, ready for travel and abuse while protecting the precious cargo within. For versatility, Audeze also includes two sets of 8′ (2.5m) headphone cables. One set is a balanced 4-pin to 2×4-pin mini XLR. The other cable is a single-ended version with 4 pins on the headphone end and a standard ¼” termination on the other.  Finally, a ¼” to mini-jack adapter leaves the listener wired for sound with any headphone amplifier on hand.

At 1.3 pounds (600 grams) the X is hefty indeed and there’s no mistaking the weight on one’s head. After an hour or two of listening, I’m generally ready to free my head from the velvet vise for a short break, but that’s a small tradeoff for its great sound. The wide headband and large, comfy earcups distribute that weight well and when you have them on, physical heft certainly yields to the delicate sonics.

Scylla and Charybdis

Audeze’s headphone designs are dangerously attractive indeed. Like the famous hazards Odysseus attempted to navigate, it’s difficult to avoid their pull. Although there is a generally similar appearance to the earlier headphone models, the LCD-X takes a departure from the familiar wood-laden earcups. The Xs offer anodized aluminum enclosures, with a choice of either black or grey rings around the ’cups. There’s also a choice of padding: either a black lambskin leather, or a non-leather microsuede. In either case, as with earlier headphone designs, the foam underneath gives the earcups a slight slope, canting them forward when worn and projecting the sonic image forward a bit. Throughout listening sessions, the ear pads proved generally comfortable.  I find the leather cups do get a little warm and tacky against the skin, so the microsuede may be the preference of some.  I realized also that trying to wear glasses at the same time as the LCD-Xs is an uncomfortable pairing, so these aren’t the best ’phones for those far-sighted folks like me who enjoy music while working on the computer.

Not fixing what’s not broken, LCD-X retains familiar design elements of planar magnetic transducers and Neodymium magnets as with the past headphone versions. The LCD-X headphones differ from their siblings through the use of a new transducer, though, made of a lighter and thinner material plus what Audeze dubs “Fazor” technology. The company claims these alternations manage the flow of sound through the headphone facilitating better imaging, a smoother frequency response, and greater frequency extension. Listening to the new cans, I see that Audeze doesn’t exaggerate. They also claim the capability of frequency response exceeding the 20Hz–20kHz range of normal human hearing, dropping down to 5Hz and with information transfer up to 50kHz. Without an elephant and a porpoise on hand, I’m not able to verify the extremes, but what does reside within my audible range proves magnificent.

Song of the Sirens

As with the other LCDs, bass is a strong attribute. I have not heard another open-back design that offers the depth, weight and punch that Audezes do. Percussion is portrayed marvelously, and these headphones can rock. I’m surprised by the level of heft these open backs produce. Only with custom IEMs have I heard the level of tangibility of drums interacting with my eardrums. Bass, snare, toms, tambourines and cymbals all have an extremely convincing level of impact, resonance and decay. In addition to jazz tracks, I tossed Electric Six’s “Fire” into the mix for fun. The song’s heft though the LCD-Xs is an absolute joy and completely immersive experience.  Green Day’s “St. Jimmy,” another favorite rock track, startled me to the point of a physical lurch when the first notes burst forth from silence. Nice!

These headphones are capable of great delicacy as well. Vocals sound incredible through the X. They strike the right balance between capturing every nuance while avoiding stridency and sibilance that often accompanies them. As with Shivaree’s “Who’s Got Trouble” the LCD-Xs reveal the sound and palpability of Ambrosia Parsley’s breath in anticipation of vocal passages. When the first note rings forth with clarity and refinement there’s certainly no disappointment.

With the LCD-2s the soundstage is well rendered, but as with the LCD-3, the LCD-X improves on this somewhat with better ability to project outward those recorded instruments panned to the far left and right. Sounds at the far edges of the soundstage wrap out and slightly behind the center plane of my head. Instruments are layered well in the X’s presentation and it’s easy to pick them out in the mix. Similarly, naturally (and artificially) created reverberation is quite evident as it reveals a sense of the original recording space.  Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds Live at Luther College provides a good sense of the live performance, especially the applause, shouts and song requests from the audience as the stage mics capture them. Compared with my reference hifi system, the LCD-X makes the concert sound more like an intimate club setting rather than a larger concert space, but it’s no less convincing or enjoyable.

Suitors for the Ears

So how does the LCD-X compare with its siblings? In most meaningful ways, the LCD-X exceeds the very good LCD-2’s capability. The battle for the open-back Audeze kingdom rests with the LCD-3 and the LCD-X. Things get tricky comparing these two, because they are both wonderful and there’s far more similarity than difference.

Ultimately, it’s a slight, nuanced “flavor” change rather than one headphone being superior to the other.  Rather than go into a lot of detail about the LCD-3 which Jeff Dorgay reviewed here, [1] I’ll just focus on the small differences I hear between the two sets of cans.

In most of my test recordings, the LCD-X gives a slightly increased sense of palpability. Bass feels a touch more punchy too. Perhaps this is the result of their new Fazor technology. On the upside, there’s a great degree of connection to the music and a “live,” nimble sense to it. On some recordings it can be a little intense. The LCD-3s also give the listener an exciting, engaging musical experience with extended bass, but the tangible intensity is taken down one notch, and it’s easier to relax into the sound.

In parallel with the above characteristic, the X is slightly more revealing of recordings in general. Especially listening to digital recordings, that can imply both upsides and downsides depending on the quality of the recording. Those who prefer to have every musical detail revealed – or those like recording engineers who need to hear every detail – will love the X’s prowess.  By comparison, the 3s are a touch more forgiving and lean just slightly to the side of warmth. I find this most evident in female vocal passages or in some recordings of horns.

The last subtle difference is hard to describe and best offered as an analogy. Imagine that the music heard though each set of LCDs is filtered through a set of sunglasses. The X has a very neutral grey lens, and the 3 has a slightly rose-colored lens. Each LCD has its own way of portraying – and enhancing – all that comes through it. There’s no right answer. Depending on a listener’s musical selections, associated amplification, sources, and personal preferences, either headphone could find itself welcome in an existing system.

If Marooned…

On the very slim chance I’m shipwrecked and stranded like Odysseus, there are a few things I’d hate to be without. After chap stick, the top of that list is music, and a means with which to hear it. While my first love is the sonic experience from a full-sized stereo system, the sound and presentation of music with the Audeze LCD-X headphones is beguiling enough that it could serve as a worthy substitute. It’s a marvelous addition to their headphone lineup.

Pricing for the LCD-Xs is $1,699 placing it between its other open-back siblings, the LCD-2 and -3 costing $1,145 and $1,945 respectively. That’s certainly not cheap, but considering the X’s build quality and sonic value in comparison with a big iron system, think about it in the cost-context of a good set of speakers. You will need a good amplifier to get the most out of these headphones, so that should be factored into your budget at some point. With that and your favorite source, you have a very musically satisfying personal sound system.

If you are considering headphones in this price range, the LCD-3 and the LCD-X are enthusiastically recommended, and currently my favorite open backs. After many hours comparing the two, the X won over my ears with their punchy, highly resolving and neutral nature. The LCD-X sonics, for me, left little to be desired. I purchased the review sample as my open-back reference headphone and that’s the best compliment I can give.  –Rob Johnson

Additional Listening

It’s tough to pick a favorite between the LCD-3 and the LCD-X.  Both are incredibly compelling, and while I’d give the nod to the LCD-3 in ultimate smoothness, without sacrificing resolution, the LCD-X might be a better choice for those making their first foray into high dollar headphones.

We can argue to infinity about which presentation is more desirable, however these two fantastic phones are a lot like the Lyra Titan-i and the Atlas phono cartridges, or if you’re an old school analog photographer, Kodachrome and Ektachrome.  The LCD-X has a little more contrast, a little more edge sharpness if you will and the other one has a touch more ultimate resolution.

The ultimate decision will be determined by your listening taste and of course, your headphone amplifier.  Personally, I prefer the LCD-3 with solid state amplification and the LCD-X with my ALO Audio Studio Six.  But the bigger story, is that the LCD-X is more easily driven by a laptop, smartphone or iPad than either the LCD-2 or LCD-3, making it the perfect place to start assembling a mega quality personal audio system.  Grab a pair of LCD-X’s for now and add a big daddy headphone amp later as your enthusiasm and budget allows.

We are happy to make the LCD-X our choice for Product of the Year in the Personal Audio category.  It’s been exciting to watch Audeze grow and continue to expand their repertoire.

–Jeff Dorgay

Audeze LCD-X Headphones

MSRP: $1,699

www.audeze.com

Peripherals

I must be honest with you, this is the only component I have ever purchased sight unseen at full retail price.  That’s right.

Spin the clock back to 1986, when I was still living in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and making regular pilgrimages to Quintessence Audio in Naperville, Illinois to audition hifi gear.  My buddy Frank at Quintessence called me when the newer, more “affordable” Krell preamp came in, telling me to “buy one now, before there was a waiting list.”

No self-control

Of course I went for it, and when my PAM-5 arrived a couple of weeks later I dashed right out of work to make the three-hour drive to Naperville in the middle of the day.  Something to do with food poisoning, I recall. By about 10pm, I was back home and the PAM-5 was rocking the house, driving a Threshold 4000A and a pair of Acoustat 2+2’s.  Good memories indeed.  My experience with Quintessence was so pleasant, that ten years later, when I called Frank to buy another Krell preamplifier, I bought a Kerry Blue Terrier from him instead!

In June when a mint PAM-5 came up on EBay for six hundred bucks, I had to take a stroll down memory lane.  Fortunately, it was mint and worked like a champ.  The PAM-5 sold for about 2000 dollars back in 1986 and I was blown away by the weight and dynamics.  It gave my 2+2 based system just what they needed.

Remember, this was just before the dawn of preamplifiers having remote controls, so the PAM-5 is all manual.  I’m sure this has contributed in a minor way to its long-term reliability, less to break and all.

Somewhat understated and less massive than the Flagship PAM-1, (and lacking the balanced outputs of later Krell designs) the PAM-5 still had a separate, outboard power supply, which was a bit rare back in the mid 80’ and seldom seen on much other than Mark Levinson components.  The PAM-5 also featured a great moving coil cartridge phono stage that was incredibly quiet and much more dynamic than the Ortofon MC transformer I had been using with my Dynavector 23R cartridge.

Sometimes the past is even better than you remember

In my current semi vintage system, which consists of the Conrad Johnson MV-75 from our last issue and a pair of Sterling Broadcast LS3/5a’s, I am still very impressed with the sound of the PAM-5.  When Krell first hit the hifi scene, they became famous for having bigger than life dynamics, and extremely powerful and well-defined bass.

This preamplifier holds up the legacy quite well, with an extremely modern sound.  Eyes closed, you would swear you are listening to a preamplifier in the 2-5000 dollar range.  Not only does it possess all of the dynamics I remember, but the tonality is excellent and the upper registers are clean and tidy, not grainy or sterile.

Well Krell was a bit better known back then for the sheer slam of their amplifiers, their preamplifiers were undiscovered jewels to many.  The PAM-1 and PAM-3 were better known, but the PAM-5 was more reasonably priced and even used a special “phase correction circuit” in the CD player input.

I pulled the 20 year-old Pioneer CD player out of my garage and sure enough, this did take some of the harsh, grungy sound out of CD playback.  I remember in 1986, this was a lifesaver for my NAD player.  The difference between good LP playback and CD was huge, but this took some of the digital edge down in a very good way.

The Krell PAM-5 is a welcome blast from the past.  It has stellar build quality and top-notch sound.  You could still make one of these the cornerstone of a very good hifi system today and be quite pleased.  Unfortunately, Frank is no longer with us and Harry is getting pretty old, but you can still contact the current owner, Mick Survance at Quintessence Audio.  He’s having the best year in their 32-year history, providing the great customer service I received 22 years ago.

www.krellonline.com

www.quintessenceaudio.com

In 1989 I purchased a Nakamichi CD player that had a digital output jack on the rear panel.  I scratched my head and thought “what’s that for?”  It didn’t take long.  A few months later a good friend had just purchased this tiny box from PS Audio called The Digital Link, that took the digital output from your CD player and did outboard digital conversion, with an external power supply similar to a phono preamplifier. Oh yeah, that little box was a thousand bucks.

If you remember what CD’s sounded like back then, you would have paid a million bucks if you had it to get rid of early digititis. Man, those players sounded screechy back in the day.

Of course, I ran out and bought one right away and it still works just fine, almost thirty years later. When PS Audio’s Digital Link III came in for review, it jogged my memory and I realized that it was still up on a shelf somewhere.  Serial number 1351.  How old is that?  So old that the folks at PS Audio only have a schematic for it, but that’s all they remember.

Next step, pop the top and see what’s inside.

As you can see from the picture, this was a well thought out and nicely built piece of gear.  Using a pair of what was then Burr Brown’s newest 18-Bit DAC chip, the PCM 61P, the Digital Link was a real hotrod in 1990.  I still remember the day I brought it home and hooked this one up.  My audiophile buddies thought I had gone completely insane, thinking that CD’s could actually sound good, but the Digital Link was great.

Years later I stepped up to a PS Audio UltraLink II, as my local audio dealer was abandoning their support for PS Audio for $400.  While I kept that DAC for about eight years, something told me to hang on to the original.  Recently, I borrowed that old Nakamichi OMS-3 CD player from staff writer Jerold O’Brien and we were both surprised at how well these two still sounded together.

While the Digital Link is not anywhere near as resolving as today’s hardware, it is still a very musical device. Back in 1990, it was a big breath of fresh air and was responsible for my CD collection growing to where it is today.  – Jeff Dorgay

I’ve spent the last couple of years immersed in MartinLogan speakers.  I started with the Vantage, moved up to the Summit, made a sidestep to the new Spire and now have their flagship, the CLX, in my listening room.  But my enthusiasm for MartinLogan started many years ago with their other famous flagship, the CLS.  It began in a shopping mall in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with a girlfriend who wanted to go shoe shopping.  As I still complained while being dragged into the targeted shoe shop, I spied a HiFi store in the corner of my field of vision and my viewpoint suddenly changed. “Take as much time as you need, babe…”

I can’t remember the name of the store, but I remember those speakers.  In the upstairs loft where they kept the good stuff, were a complete Levinson system with an Oracle turntable.  They were having a slow day and the salesman took pity after my narrow escape from shoe shopping. “My girlfriend goes in there and I’m done, man!”  he said as we traded evil girlfriend stories. He dropped Synchronicity on the Oracle, and about five seconds into “Tea in the Sahara,” I was under their spell. An Acoustat 2+2 owner at the time, I was blown away by how open these speakers were compared with mine.  Shortly after returning home, I had a pair of CLS’s of my own.  But I had an advanced case of audiophile nervosa and after about a year, I sold them to move on to a giant pair of ProAcs.  After all, I could always get another pair, right?

Wrong.

For whatever reason, my local dealer never seemed to have a pair in stock and everyone who had a pair of CLS’s held on to them for dear life or wanted about double what retail used to be. So I went back to my dealer and picked up a pair of ML’s newest speaker, the Aerius.  “I told you not to get rid of the CLS,” the salesman said as I peeled off the hundred-dollar bills.  The ML’s were great speakers, but the CLS was something special. After the Aeriuses went away, my non-evil girlfriend (now my wife) would quip as I agonized over the latest speaker du jour, “I really liked the sound of those MartinLogans. Why don’t we get another pair of those?”  And by this time, I didn’t even have a great room for panel speakers.

I used to rationalize my lack of insight by saying such things as “They weren’t that great.”  Or, “They didn’t have enough bass.” Or, “I can’t play Zeppelin on them really loud.”  You’ve been there.  But you know what it’s like to let that one special thing get away; it always gnaws at you.

All good things come back around, eventually.

The Vantage rekindled my interest in MartinLogan speakers and after moving up the line to the Summit and a little sideways to the Spire, I knew the CLX was also going to be just as special.  As you will see from my review on page xx, these are indeed phenomenal speakers. However, out of respect for MartinLogan and the CLS, I had to go back and revisit the former classic.  Going back to something you once really loved can be a mixed bag. It’s like going to your high school reunion to see if your old girlfriend is still hot.  Chances are high that you will end up disappointed. This time it would be a good meeting, though.

Thanks to Rich Kent from the MartinLogan Owners forum, a pristine pair of CLS’s were only a couple of hours north on the I-5.  Rich let me have a Sunday to listen to his system and get reacquainted with these old friends.

They still won’t play Zeppelin super loud, but neither will my LS3/5a’s.  That’s not the point.  Rich has his mated with a MartinLogan Depth sub and it is a sweet combination.  After some serious listening, I knew they were everything I remembered and then some.  That signature transparency and upper bass clarity that comes from a full range panel is there in spades, and the CLS throws a very wide and deep soundstage.  The CLS was not quite the one-person speaker as I once thought (chalk some of this up to Rich’s setup abilities), but you still would never mistake them for cone speakers.

These days if you can find a pair of CLS’s for sale, they are right around $2,000 for a pair.  As Rich said, “Hey, I bought these for 1,500 bucks and got a new pair of panels from MartinLogan for another $900.  Where are you going to get sound like this for $2,400?” I couldn’t agree with him more. The one comparison I would draw between the CLS and the CLX is that the CLS feels as if you were about 15 rows from the stage and the CLX is much more immediate and dynamic, as if you were in row 3.  But the virtues of a big, transparent sound are still there with the CLS, and this is a speaker that I could live with very easily.  You would never guess that this design is 25 years old.

CLS’s are rare on the used-speaker market, partially because this speaker was so far ahead of its time and because MartinLogan still supports the CLS, so again, no one wants to get rid of them.  That’s right, you can still buy replacement panels for a pair of CLS’s.  Try that with your favorite speaker from a boutique builder.

The CLS started out in production in 1984, with a number of product changes from the II, to the II a, finishing with the IIz that ran until late 2002.  There were a number of incremental changes along the way, but the majority of them were aimed at making the speaker easier to drive, as the first ones had an impedance perilously close to one ohm.  Personally, I think reports of amplifiers going up in flames were overblown; I used a Krell KSA-50 with mine and had excellent luck. MSRP went from $2,995 for the first models to $4,595 for the final CLS IIz Anniversary Editions that went out the door.

When you find a decent pair that someone wants to get rid of, they usually are going for somewhere between $1,500 and $2,500.  The electrostatic panel had a life of about 10 years, so should your panels need replacement, they are available and cost about $1,000 with shipping.  If you have an amplifier that is up to the task, these are still quite amazing speakers.

Back in the mid 1970s, the idea that a preamplifier could provide “straight wire with gain” was an elusive goal. The idea that such perfection could be achieved from a valve model seemed even more unlikely. Yet when the $595 SP-3 preamplifier arrived on the scene in 1972, many audio reviewers proclaimed that such perfection was well within reach. The SP-3 wound up being one of ARC’s most popular products ever, and they sold thousands and thousands of them until the model was discontinued in 1976.

Until just a few years ago, you could buy an ARC SP-3 preamplifier in fairly good condition for $400 or $500. Unfortunately for bargain hunters, the legendary status of this all vacuum tube preamp has been revived and a unit in perfect working order with excellent cosmetics can now cost upwards of $1200 to $1400. Our SP-3, supplied by Kurt Doslu at Echo Hi-Fi in Portland, had been recently serviced by Audio Research and was a particularly pristine example. The cosmetics, however, were straight out of the ’70s—a boxy design with plenty of knobs and plastic buttons. (Compare this to the solid-state SP-4, which still looks like it could be part of the current lineup.) The six 12AX7s and 2 12AX7 LN tubes, easily spotted through the top mesh plate of the case, also seem a little strange in comparison to modern designs that feature only three or four valves at most.

I plugged this 35-year-old into a fairly heady system including the Conrad-Johnson Premier 350 power amplifier, Harbeth Monitor 40.1 loudspeakers and the new McIntosh MCD500 CD/SACD player. My goal was to investigate those lofty old claims of near-perfection to see how much the bar has moved in the last 35 years. Surprisingly, it hasn’t moved as far as you might think – we were all impressed at how good this preamp sounds.

The first thing I noticed about the SP-3 was how quiet it was. When I’ve dealt with vintage amps and preamps in the past, there’s always a bit of noise that reminds you that you’re listening to something old, something tubed. This wasn’t the case with the SP-3. I was genuinely amazed at the utter silence, even with the volume knob turned way up. Once I started playing music, I was instantly treated to a warm, wet and slightly liquid presentation. While this sounds like a more typical description of vintage tube amp sound, I also noticed no loss of resolution and detail. In many ways, the SP-3 sounded very close to some of the finer contemporary tube preamps I’ve had in my system over the last couple of years.

I played a wide variety of musical selections with the SP-3 including Holly Cole, Thom Yorke, Primus and Midori. I even pulled out the soundtrack of Born on the Fourth of July, the one John Williams score that doesn’t overwhelm me with that Spielberg-like sense of false wonder and awe. The SP-3 excelled at spreading the string orchestra out in a panoramic manner, letting me hear separate groups of instruments interact and support the main theme of the lone, plaintive trumpet. With intimate jazz and chamber music, the SP-3 provided all of the transient detail and tonal accuracy I’ve come to expect of the finest equipment available today.

Where the SP-3 falls short (which you can probably surmise from my “intimate jazz and chamber music” comment) is in projecting deep, textured bass. The SP-3 ran out of juice when it came to delivering the lowest registers of Tony Levin’s Chapman Stick on the title track of Paula Cole’s This Fire. On “Black Swan” from Thom Yorke’s The Eraser, bass lines felt a little chunky and two-dimensional, especially when the volume was cranked up. Much of this information was successfully retrieved once I substituted a more modern and much more expensive preamplifier (our publisher’s Conrad-Johnson ACT 2/ Series 2) back into the system.  Still, the SP3 was very impressive and highly musical at all times.

Still, I can’t think of a single preamplifier in the $1000 to $1500 range that offers such a natural, involving and seductive sound. In fact, there aren’t a lot of new preamplifiers in this price range anymore since most audiophiles start to consider integrated amps once they drift toward this price point. Even at an asking price that’s now two or three times its original cost, the SP-3 is still quite the bargain. It also speaks volumes about ARC quality that this particular unit is running as strong and as sure as the day it was made. With more and more audiophiles turning to Chinese products in order to save a few dollars, it makes much more sense to go with a proven winner like the SP-3.  –Marc Phillips

My love for British hi-fi can be traced directly to a Naim NAIT 2 that I purchased back in 1992. This little integrated amplifier, rated at between 15 and 21 watts per channel, taught me that power ratings were relative, and that a modest amp could sound more musical than the big 100wpc Japanese amplifier that it replaced. The only real flaw with the wonderful-sounding NAIT 2 was its inability to play large symphonic pieces and loud rock ‘n’ roll with any sort of authority. When pushed too far, the tiny Naim would break down, and its soundstage would collapse, sounding like an old Zenith console television.

The NAIT 3, introduced in 1993, now had 30 watts per channel so that it could be compatible with a broader range of speakers. The unit we have here is actually the 3R, a remote-controlled version, released a couple of years later. To my surprise, this 14-year-old unit could actually be controlled with our publishers R-Com remote. When it comes to promoting brand loyalty through these kinds of details, Naim is certainly a leader in the industry.

The 3R brought back a wave of nostalgia since it uses the same case as the CD3 CD player I used for over a decade.  I had a brief chuckle at the input marked “VCR” on the front panel, but I also sighed at the lack of one marked “PHONO,” which was present on my NAIT 2. (That was a killer little MM section, too.)  If your NAIT 3 was blessed with a phono stage, the AUX button was replaced with one marked PHONO.

While the phono stage uses standard RCA jacks, the rest of the inputs will require DIN cables.  Fortunately I still have some Naim DIN cables from the old days, so I could get right to listening; and I had the Shanling CD-T1500 CD player and my Lehmann Audio Black Cube phono preamplifier connected straight away.  The speaker connections only offer one choice; banana plugs. During the Vereker years when the Nait 3 was made, there was only one choice of speaker cable too.  If you didn’t hook up your speakers with Naim issued NACA5 cable, your warranty was void as this cable was one of the only ones that would properly load the output stage.  Luckily, I still had a pair of these hanging around.

I couldn’t help but crack a huge smile as the Naim logo on the front panel started glowing that familiar shade of green, and I settled in for several enjoyable listening sessions.

The NAIT 3R was made during the “old Naim” days when PRaT (Pace, rhythm and Timing) ruled the day, meaning soundstaging and imaging were a lesser priority in the name of toe-tapping rhythms and tonal accuracy. While that certainly isn’t as bad as it sounds, Naim loyalists know that in the 21^st century, you can have it all, but many still enjoy the vintage Naim sound too. The soundstage depth of the NAIT 3R was fairly shallow and sounded like my Harbeth 40.1s had been pushed against the back wall. Imaging suffered slightly, with everything sounding more blurred and forward than with my reference gear.

The NAIT 3R’s strong suit was the way it presented acoustic musical instruments, with excellent tonality.  Just like my NAIT 2, this is a fantastic amp for listening to intimate jazz and chamber music.  You can easily hear the woodiness of various cellos, and the sensation of air being forced from the chest cavity of singers during loud passages.  Hauling out my old faithful Spendor S20’s that I used to use with my NAIT 2, I noticed how the NAIT 3 could be played considerably louder before clipping set in.  Though nowhere near as authoratative as the Monitor 40.1’s, I was still able to turn up the volume without the size and scope of the music folding in on itself.

If you’re using a pair of older BBC monitors from Rogers, Spendor or Harbeth, I think that this NAIT will make an excellent mate, especially if you are a PRaT junkie and crave it on a regular basis.  It’s no secret that most of the popular British speakers offer good synergy with past and current vintage Naim electronics.

Originally selling for $1,600, the unit you see here is available at Echo Audio in Portland, Oregon for $695.  A quick check of Audiogon and EBay proves this to be right on the money for a clean Nait 3R.  While Naim gear has an excellent reputation for long term reliability, these are getting somewhat long in the tooth, so if you really love this sound, budget for a recap sometime in the next few years.  This will probably set you back about another $250, but well worth it and should give you another 20 years of excellent performance. –Marc Phillips

Publishers note:  Should you be more curious about vintage Naim gear, their website features a forum with some very knowledgeable Naim owners that can point you in the right direction.

http://forums.naim-audio.com/eve

A majority of the audio world had a facelift in the early 1980s.  The silver-faced receivers from the Japanese majors were replaced with separates here and abroad with a more modern look that could have been at home on the space shuttle.

Adcom was one of the champions of reasonably priced high end gear that played beyond its price point.  Nelson Pass was brought in as consultant for the now legendary GFA-500 series amplifiers that were designed with an austere black finish, with white and silver models available as special-order options.

The press reacted favorably to these amplifiers and they sold extremely well. This led Adcom to develop the 300, 400 and 500 series preamplifiers that had a matching design aesthetic along with their operational simplicity.  (Nelson Pass had nothing to do with the design of the Adcom preamplifiers, only the power amplifiers) The horizontal louvers running along the top of those early Adcom pieces became a visual signature for Adcom for 25 years, as distinctive as the blue McIntosh meters.

Adcom expanded the line with the GFP preamplifiers to the GTP series with built-in tuners.  These were also great preamplifiers that included a high-quality FM tuner at a reasonable price. But my favorite piece from this period was the GFP-555, which did not include a tuner.

This preamplifier had a very straightforward design, making use of control knobs with a pointer shape that left no doubt as to where they were set, along with a simple tape-monitor layout that was easy to use, as many of us still had tape decks back then.

Recognizing that budding (and some seasoned) audiophiles still wanted basic tone controls, the GTP-555 had very useable bass and treble controls that only worked at the extremes of the frequency spectrum, as well as a loudness contour button.  Low and high filter buttons were also included for those still listening to grumbly turntables or AM radio. There are even a few convenience outlets on the back panel to remind you of the days of audiophilia before power cords became a component.

555 or 555II?

A look under the hood of the GFP-555 shows it to be an extremely simple layout. Only two pairs of short ribbon wires, a blue one for each of the selector knobs, and a black pair for the phono section, and that’s it.  The simple gain-path philosophy is readily apparent. There really are not many components soldered onto the board, helping to explain the rather relaxed, non-technical sound.

The dilemma that the potential GFP-555 buyer faces is whether to purchase an original or a mk. II.  The mk. II has a beefier power supply and some signal path upgrades, but the original 555 features a low-output moving-coil phono option (100 ohm impedance) as well as variable capacitance loading on the moving magnet phono input.  Both units fetch about the same price on the used market, so choose according to your needs.

The mk. II has slightly less invasive tone controls (+/- 6db at 40hz and 15khz in the original vs. +/-6db at 20 hz and 20khz in the mk. II), though the option of bypassing the output capacitors in the mk. II has been eliminated because, Adcom claims, the high-quality caps now used do not affect the output signal.  In the earlier version, the user had the option of using the “Lab” outputs with no output coupling capacitors or the normal outputs, which had a cap in place.  Purists can still bypass the output capacitors on the mk. II, but it is a permanent move that requires jumpers and soldering iron.

Still a solid performer

The big question with vintage gear is how well it physically stands the test of time.  Almost all components 25 years old or older will probably require some or all of the capacitors to be replaced, and that should be factored into the purchase price.  The review piece did have one cap replaced about a year ago, but it was given a clean bill of health upon inspection.  The technician involved even offered to buy the unit.  The previous owner had taken good care of this preamplifier, so the buttons still worked fine and there were no scratches on the knobs or front panel.  The technician mentioned that durability of mechanical parts was a strong point of Adcom units of that era.

In the mid 1980’s when I purchased a GFP-555 for the first time, the compact disc was a new development and I had just started my career as a teacher.  One of the first 10 discs I purchased for my collection was The Who’s Quadrophenia, still one of my favorite rainy-day discs.  This certainly brought back some great memories and was the first disc I cued up.  The GFP-555’s overall mellow presentation actually helped this disc somewhat, as well as my CD copy of Carole King’s Tapestry, giving it a bit more sultry feel, like the LP that I once owned.

The phono section pared up well with my basic Technics/Grado combination.  It won’t make you abandon an out-board phono stage, but if you are shopping at this level, that’s probably not an issue.  Beginning or occasional LP listeners should find the on-board phono stage more than adequate.

While not up to the level of a CJ, Krell or ARC preamp of the same period, the GFP-555 still offers solid performance and value for about one-third of the price, just as it did when it was new.  If you are looking for the cornerstone for a mid-80s vintage system, the Adcom offers great bang for the buck, with clean, used examples going for about $175-250 on Audiogon or eBay.

–Mark Marcantonio

Those seeking more information can still download the manual here: http://www.adcom.com/manuals.aspx

When I worked across the aisle in the local mall during my college years, I dreamed of owning a whole stack of SAE audio gear.  Much like Wayne in Wayne’s World, I used to pester the hell out of the “audio consultants” at TEAM Electronics to let me hear the full blown SAE system, chock full of giant VU meters, rows of LED indicators and nixie tube displays.

However when my cha-ching moment finally came and I was ready to plunk down some cold cash on a system of my own, complete with a pair of Altec Lansing Model 19’s, (the same speakers that I made them play Dark Side of the Moon on every Friday), SAE had gone out of business, never to return.  So I settled on a Harmon/Kardon Citation amplifier, because it also had a cool LED power display and by then, a good friend was working for TEAM’s competitor, so I was able to score an employee discount.  But I always dreamed of that line of red LED’s bouncing back and forth while my favorite 70’s hits were playing.

Sometimes you can revisit the past successfully

A very clean example turned up on eBay a while back, so it was a great opportunity to relive the past, but the burning question would be just how good was this amplifier I lusted over for so many years?   As many HiFi collectors know, digging up vintage gear is a lot like shaking a magic 8-ball; signs often point to no.

Not this time.  The near mint 2200 that our publisher purchased for the Slumming’ column last issue arrived in excellent shape, was well packed and all of the LED’s in the power level display worked.   Having no idea how long this 2200 had been powered down; I let it play for a few days at low level before breaking out the Pink Floyd records.  Initially mated up to my JBL-L166 speakers, I was floored at how good this old workhorse sounded, enough to add some more modern gear to the mix and investigate further.

The 2200 still has a very good helping of modern audiophile cachet.  Hooked up to our publishers Harbeth Monitor 40.1’s we were both surprised at the solid bass response and relatively grain free presentation, as part of a system with the new Audio Research SP-17 preamplifier.

Buying advice

Should you be interested in a 2200 of your own, they are rated at 100 watts per channel into 8 ohms and you should be able to purchase a very clean example in the $200 – $300 range.  There are still quite a few out there and I will be sending this one to 2200 specialist, Ken Ealey Audio in Illinois for a full rebuild.  He charges $300 to give the amplifier a substantial rebuild, upgrading the semiconductors and capacitors to current spec units, but charges an extra $50-$100 if the LED displays don’t work properly.

You can find Ken at www.kenealeyaudio.com We’ll have a full report when we get our test sample back, but I’m thinking this one’s going to be a permanent addition to my collection.

As the long time owner of a used HiFi shop, it’s rare that someone stumps the band, so to speak, but about 12 years ago, a young fellow walked into my shop with a tube preamp and power amp manufactured by Electronic Industries.  The preamp was well built with a silver faceplate, some sparsely laid out knobs and a few toggle switches.  The RCA jacks on the rear panel were spaced unusually far apart and there was an onboard phono stage.

Beyond industrial in look and feel, this gear looked like the military had put dials on a toaster oven.  The customer said he came across them while cleaning out his Grandfather’s storage unit and had no other clues.

Of course I wanted to lean back confidently in my chair and say “Ah, Electronic Industries”.   Maybe I did, but the truth is that I had absolutely no clue.  Usually I can surmise the pedigree of a piece, or at least have a sneaking suspicion of its link in the audio chain, but this time I was flailing in the audiophile abyss — as if trying to catch butterflies out of mid-air.

I gave the guy $75 for both pieces and as he walked out the door he said, “I think there might be a tuner to go with them.”  Later on, while inspecting both pieces, I still hadn’t connected the dots, though they sounded unbelievably good.  As I dozed off that night, I remembered that this was the beginning of Audio Research; I had just never seen an example in person!

Recalling the past

The next day I was in the shop early to test my memory.  Volume, balance, yes.  Selector, yes.  On/off, mute, yes.   It was definitely an early Audio Research piece!  It reminded me of one of my favorite ARC pieces, the SP-9 which we are featuring here.  After owning a used HiFi shop for over 20 years, there’s no such thing as a bad piece of Audio Research gear.  They make solid gear that is built to last and they continue to support their legacy pieces, which keeps them in demand.

Unwittingly, we had just purchased what was the hi-fi equivalent of a Gottlieb Daimler/ Karl Benz prototype.  It was the work of Bill Johnson, founder of Audio Research, who in 1951 started a company called Electronic Industries that built tube amplifiers, serviced all types of electronic equipment and pioneered the resurgence of tube equipment in high end audio.

Clearly, the Electronic Industries preamp I had on the bench was quite a bit different from the Audio Research SP-9, which was created later in 1987.  This preamplifier was a standard tube design.  The latter, as Johnson explains it, is the culmination of numerous experiments with transistors and eventually FETs to come up with a hybrid design that was “superior to the early tube units.”

Not to get too technical, but conceptualize the amplification of a tube as an ascending line that has a bit of a curve at both ends.  Similarly, imagine the gain through a FET (field effect transistor) as a corresponding “line” has an opposite curve at both ends.  In order to get the lowest distortion, you want that line to be as straight as possible.  So by combining the two amplification devices (a tube and a FET) it’s much like squeezing together a pair of curved salad tongs to get one straight spork.  Voila! Super low distortion and a tube that will last a very long time because it is not being run hard.

Moreover, the single-ended circuitry fed one of the best and most long-lasting tubes of our time, the 6DJ8 (6922). The results were amazing and the phono stage of the SP-9 was superb.  Factory set to be mated with any MM cartridge, the low noise and clear gain made it capable of handling medium output MC cartridges perfectly.

This hybrid design proved impenetrable.  The Audio Research SP-9 redefined the term “bullet-proof.” While previous all-tube models often encountered noise, channel imbalance, hiss and distortion, this new hybrid design was dead quiet, linear, and most of all, musical.  The SP-9 hit retailer’s shelves in 1987 with an MSRP of $1,695 and offered tremendous value.

Audio Research obviously knew it was on to something, later offering Mk II and Mk III upgrades, costing $1,795 and $2,495 when discontinued in 1996.  With each, there were wiring changes, power supply upgrades and better circuit boards to improve low level distortion and better grounding.   Throughout these revisions, the SP-9 continued to be one of the best values in high-end audio for those wanting an onboard phono stage.

Now I know that everything improves over time.  Cars get faster, computers get smaller, and people get, well anyway.  And it was clear to me how much better the SP-9 was than my cherished Electronic Industries preamp, so I was very intrigued to compare this very clean SP-9 to the current offering from ARC, their SP-17 preamplifier, also reviewed in this issue.

In the TONEAudio main listening room, I was able to listen to the SP-9 in a mix of old and new gear.  Our publisher had it warmed up and in a system featuring a classic SAE 2200 power amplifier (also astonishingly good) and a pair of Harbeth Monitor 40.1 speakers.  Sitting on top of the rack was a Technics SL-1200, complete with SME 309 arm and a Sumiko Blackbird high output moving coil cartridge to spin records and a Luxman combination player for digital.  Nice.

I head straight for the vinyl rack and put Todd Rundgren’s Something/Anything from Mofi on the Technics and fade back to an earlier day.  “Hello, it’s me.  I’ve thought about us for a long, long time.  Maybe….”   Wow, it couldn’t get better than this, I thought.   The tonal balance of the vocals was as I remembered, the clarity and musicality was perfect.  I was definitely grooving on this 70’s classic, when I heard a voice:

“So, you ready to hear the SP-17?”

“Sure” I said abruptly, as if the dentist just rudely awakened me from the laughing gas.

Still slightly pissed from being taken out of my trance, I sat back in the chair as he started the same song again.

The new preamplifier sounded completely different.  The “Hello” jumped out of nowhere and the words “it’s me” elevated in pitch and sustained themselves in a way I’d never heard before.  While I hate to admit it, the focus of Todd’s voice and the finish to the notes was quite clearly superior to the SP-9.  The SP-9 had all of the warmth and richness, but the SP-17 offered the dimensionality and finish of a very fine wine.

Nevertheless, I’ll bet I could ‘hot-swap’ an SP-9 into almost any new audiophile’s system and have them appreciate the lyrical and sanguine qualities of a 20-year-old piece that has stood the test of time.  The enduring greatness of Audio Research and one of Bill Johnson’s best works is still one of the best values in hi-fidelity today.  For roughly $650, you can find a used Audio Research SP-9 hybrid tube preamp with a phono stage that will still exceed your expectations.   Try to get one if you can.  The phono stage alone is worth the price of admission.

Lastly, that fellow did walk back into the store again, with the tuner he promised.  It had a silver faceplate just like the others, but this one said “Audio Research FM-1” on the front.  It was a Dynaco FM-3 tube tuner with custom mods and a special Audio Research faceplate.  Go figure.  –Kurt Doslu

Ed. Note: Kurt Doslu is the owner of Echo Audio; Portland’s premier used HiFi shop.  Over the years he’s had the privilege of getting his hands on just about everything at least once.

Getting my hands on a Mark Levinson 23 was definitely a pleasant stroll down memory lane.  The last Levinson amp to grace my listening room was the 50-watt-per-channel ML-11, and it sucked.  The amp I really wanted was this baby here, the mighty no.23 with 200 watts per channel.  But alas, back then I was a poseur and the no.23 had a retail price of $4,995 while the wimpy little ML-11 was only $1,995. But it said Mark Levinson on the front panel!

The no.23 was made from 1987 to 1990 and then became the 23.5, which ran all the way to 1995.  For a limited time, 23 owners could upgrade to the new model for about $2,000.

As much as hard-core Levinson fans will grump about which version is better, the truth is:  they both really rock.  Though designed by the Madrigal staff (not Mark Levinson, the man), these amplifiers had a very musical sound that was considerably warm overall compared to later products that were more clinical sounding.

Compact in size compared to the monstrous blue Krell amplifiers of the same period, the no.23 was packed with power supply and output transistors bolted to massive heat sinks.  Don’t let the small size fool you; it still weighs almost 100 pounds.  Not man enough to lift it?  Then you’re not man enough to own it, I’d say.

How much is that doggie in the window?

This particular specimen came from a recent visit to Echo Audio (www.echohifi.com) in Portland, Oregon with an $1,800 price tag on the shelf.  As you can see from the photos, it’s as clean as a whistle and upon bringing it home to for some extended listening sessions, I am tempted to make this part of my permanent collection.

Back when I owned my ML-11, I didn’t have a balanced preamplifier and those special CAMAC connectors were a major pain to deal with. Fast forward to today with an Audio Research LS-26 preamplifier and a three-meter pair of balanced Audioquest Sky cables, and I’m ready to roll.  Having just recently acquired the same speakers that I owned back in the late 80’s, a pair of mint Acoustat 2+2’s with the Medallion upgrades and fresh capacitors, I was astounded at just how good this amplifier sounds, even by today’s standards.

The bass is thunderous and gripped the Acoustats, providing better sound than I ever had back in the 80’s.  The high end is very non-grainy with a smooth if slightly forward midrange.  Even when taking it over to the TONEAudio studio to compare it with a few of the big-bucks power amplifiers in for review this issue, the no.23 not only sounds  great  but it’s an incredible bargain for less than $2,000.

Should your no.23 need service, there are a number of independent facilities around the country that can help you, and a quick call to the factory revealed that they send all their legacy product to Pyramid Audio in Austin, Texas.  Chris Lewis has years of ML repair under his belt and told me that the no. 23 is still very serviceable.  You can reach them at 512 458-8292.

A great anchor for your system

If you’d like a great treasure from high-end audio’s past and an amplifier that will drive practically anything, I would suggest a nice, clean Mark Levinson no.23.  An all-solid-state Levinson system from this time period is too much for me, but pair this amplifier with your favorite tube preamplifier (preferably one with balanced outputs) and you will be amazed at the level of musicality you can achieve in your system.  And if you come across a mint pair of 25 watt, ML-2 monoblocks, call me.  I’m done collecting tube amplifiers for a while.

When I first heard the Spica TC-50’s in 1985, they had already been on the market for some time.  I was impressed but I ignored them because I was a panel guy. Being the proud owner of a gigantic pair of Acoustat 2+2’s, I wasn’t going to put those tiny box speakers in my listening room.  Even so, I had become somewhat enamored with the Rogers LS3/5a’s, thanks to one of my neighbors.

But two years later, when I decided to abandon the Midwest for good and head to Arizona, I wasn’t all that excited about packing up an eight-foot-tall pair of speakers. That was how I became a TC-50 fan after all.  I was amazed at how much of the midrange transparency and three-dimensional imaging these tiny speakers were able to nail for $500 a pair.  I walked out of Quintessence Audio in Naperville, Illinois, with a demo pair of Spicas under my arm for $450 and left them boxed until I arrived at my new digs in Scottsdale, AZ, a week later.

Those little speakers served me well for the next four years while high-end audio had to take a back seat to getting established in a new city. But I actually found myself listening to music more.  They were a pleasure to live with and worked well in my small apartment.  While I swore off the audiophile scene for a while, it wasn’t long before the NAD 3020 that made the trip with me was replaced with a CJ PV-10 preamplifier and MV-50 power amplifier.  The relatively flat impedance curve made the small speakers easy to drive with a favorite tube amp; just start with the 4-ohm tap.

This took the sound from good to glorious, and I even managed to find the matching Spica eight-inch subwoofer at a local retailer in their used department. “This little thing doesn’t make any bass, who would call this a subwoofer anyway?” the salesman smugly told me.  I gave him $50 and hauled ass out of there before he figured out what he had actually sold me. It turned out to be the missing piece I needed, especially after moving to a larger space.

You can still pick up a nice, clean used pair of TC-50’s for about $200 if you keep your eyes peeled.  Make sure the owner hasn’t done any mods or swapped drivers, as there are no exact replacements for the tweeters.  G-R Research offers a Spica “upgrade,” so this might be an option for some of you. But it will sound different from the originals.

The key to this speaker was the extraordinary care taken in matching the drivers and crossover networks.  We listen to companies like Wilson Audio brag about matching their crossovers and drivers to .5 db tolerances, but Spica was doing this almost 30 years ago with their $500 per pair speakers!  Pretty impressive.

The unconventional (for the time) triangle shape kept the 6 1/2-inch woofer time aligned with the one-inch dome tweeter; both drivers were made by Audax in France. The woofer has a rubber surround, so there is no worry about the driver decomposing, but the tweeters are fragile. They always were fragile and now there are no more, so this is not a speaker to rock out with.  A little too frisky with the volume control and silence. The TC-50 doesn’t give you a bit of warning.

Because the drivers were so tightly matched to the crossovers, your chance of just popping in another driver from another speaker is slim to none.  Should you really like the TC-50’s, it’s probably not a bad idea to have a second pair for spare tweeters.  Madisound claims to now have an exact replacement tweeter for the TC-50, but I’m not sure how well this would work without being able to measure and match them.  I’d err on the side of caution for now.

Massive stands are a must with the TC-50 to get a modest amount of bass and to get the pinpoint imaging for which these speakers are capable.  Thanks to the resolution of the TC-50’s, I suggest better-than-budget cable as well.  Attention to the small details will be greatly rewarded.

I got a very friendly note from John Bau, the creator of the TC-50, on Facebook a few months ago, and he seemed genuinely pleased at the love that is still out there for his speakers.  “Just replace those electrolytic caps in the crossover and they’ll play for another 20 years,” he said.

In my reference system, everyone that stopped by was impressed at how well the TC-50 design has held up.  Only slightly grainy compared to modern offerings, this is still a speaker I could easily live with, especially with a decent small subwoofer.  Staff member Jerald O’Brien commented on the exemplary bass performance of the TC-50’s just as I remembered that the JL Audio Gotham was still on.  My bad.

When I shut off the Gotham, he remarked, “That’s exactly how I remember them…”  By far, the Spica TC-50 was one of my favorite memories of the ‘80’s.  High-end audio definitely needs another speaker like this, offering a huge helping of tonal accuracy and transparency in a small package.  Who knows, maybe John will come out of retirement someday…  -Jeff Dorgay

While some audiophiles complain about the high cost of components in the 21^st Century, back in 1981 when Nakamichi introduced the ZX-7, it had a retail price of $1,250.  That’s right, $1,250 for a cassette deck.  The first generation of CD players had just hit the market and they sounded dreadful, and reel-to-reel tape recorders were headed out the door as well.  Much like any technology, the cassette deck was discontinued just as it had reached the peak of its development.

Featuring a discrete three-head design, you could monitor your recordings right from the tape just like an open-reel deck, and the ZX-7 also featured the industry standard Dolby B and the newer Dolby C noise reduction.  While Dolby C offered an additional 6 dB higher level of noise reduction than Dolby B, it was more susceptible to problems with head alignment and caused serious “fluttering” in the playback if not perfectly aligned.

Adjustments galore

The ZX-7’s claim to fame was its multiple adjustments for standard type I tape, type II (chrome) and type IV (metal) tapes, allowing the user to adjust record azimuth, bias, EQ and record level/balance.  The ability to fine tune these adjustments was a big part of what gave the flagship Nakamichi decks their ability to capture so much musical information on that tiny strip of tape, often putting lesser open-reel decks to shame, albeit at a much higher price.  Right around this time, you could still purchase a TEAC 2300 for about $600, so this was pretty stratospheric pricing.

Once the deck was set for your tape of choice, you were ready to start recording!  Along with all the adjustments, the deck had a full logic transport that was like butter.  The tapes were handled with the utmost of care.

Fond memories

Using a ZX-7 back in the mid-1980s, I found it to be a great deck to save wear and tear on my record collection and indispensable at parties when everyone had had a drink or two.  I’m sure the Nak paid for itself in phono cartridges not destroyed back then.

But the best part was the sound.  This deck truly did have many of the attributes of an open-reel deck with a frequency response that extended out to 22kHz with metal tape, which retailed for about $50 for a case of 10 TDK 90-minute tapes.  The uber-cool ones with metal and see-through acrylic housings were about $10 each!  They didn’t sound that much better than the standard plastic ones, but they looked serious. Today, if you can find them in the shrink wrap, they can fetch $75-$125 each. Crazy.

I recently found a mint ZX-7 at my local HiFi shop, Echo Audio in Portland, Oregon, and I couldn’t resist doing the time warp again.  I had a mint 600 series II in for a tune up at the time and the shop owner made it very easy for me to get out of the 600 and into the ZX-7.  A quick market check reveals that these decks in perfect shape can run about $500. If you have a local tape-deck expert, expect to pay about $125-$175 to have the deck thoroughly cleaned and adjusted properly.  Just like when buying a vintage sports car, buy the best deck you possibly can; you don’t want to start doing major repairs on one of these.

Lives up to its legacy

It’s pretty wacky inserting a vintage cassette deck into a six-figure reference system, but the ZX-7 still delivers the goods after all these years.  And I still managed to have a couple of TDK MA-R’s in my private stash ready to go (because I rarely get rid of anything, especially if it’s a discontinued audio format).

Cuing up the Raven TWO, I put together a mix tape of some of my favorite MoFi records from the same time period and it was a great blast from the past.  With the additional resolution of today’s HiFi gear, it’s easier to see where the Nakamichi’s limitations are.  Even though the metal tape offers up great high-frequency extension, there is a modest loss in dynamics and image focus that gives the tape away.

But when heard through a more-vintage system, consisting of a Marantz 2275 receiver, Technics SL-1200/Shure V15 table and a pair of JBL L-100’s, even the chrome bias tapes that I made with the ZX-7 are indistinguishable from the vinyl playback.  That’s what made the ZX-7 so highly coveted in its day.

If a full-blown reel-to-reel deck frightens you, think about a high-performance cassette deck.  They are a ton of fun and for now, parts are plentiful.  Should you go down the Nakamichi path, you can get more background information at www.naks.com

Keeping the ship afloat – Phoenix Tape Company

Larry Mellette remains the ultimate tape-deck enthusiast. Along with his other website, tapeheads.net, he started manufacturing cassette tapes.  “It started with a company I was working with; they had enough metal tape stock to make about 3,500 tapes, so I bought it all.”  He also has a line of two different chrome tapes and the shells are loaded to order, so this is a labor of love, not the second coming of Maxell.

But that’s great news for those of us who haven’t turned our back on our cassette decks.  While he won’t reveal his source for tape stock, Mellette said, “You’d be surprised if I told you who made the tape.”  He’s sold 3,000 tapes so far, with a dealer in the UK (Tapeline), Australia (Gamve) and tapes.com here in the US.

Following in the footsteps of those who have been bringing reel-to-reel tape decks back to the forefront of audiophilia, Mellette is working on a cassette deck of his own.  The design is not finalized yet, but he thinks the first deck will be playback only.

If you still love your cassette deck, join the forum at tapeheads.net.  It’s a great group of enthusiasts with a large cache of information on tape decks of all formats, as well as a buying/trading area.  -Jeff Dorgay

The first pair of “real” HiFi speakers I’d ever heard were JBL’s, a pair of L-26’s to be exact, with orange grille cloth and light oak cabinets.  You never forget your first.  At 13 years old, I was highly impressed when the salesman put a copy of Steely Dan’s Can’t Buy a Thrill on the Dual turntable and let it rip.  “Reeling in the Years” sounded way better than it ever did on the Zenith table radio at home.

There would be no buying JBL’s that day, but I did buy a copy of Stereo Review. (Stereophile was a fringe magazine back then, and I would not encounter it and TAS for a few more years.)  On the inside cover was a JBL ad, featuring the L-100 Century.  I asked the sales guy, who by now had become pretty tired of answering questions from a kid who obviously wasn’t going to buy anything today how much a pair of these monsters cost.  “A lot more than you’ve got, kid.”  I found out later on that the MSRP for a pair of Century 100s back in 1973 was $273 each.

And so began a life-long interest in HiFi and a disdain for HiFi salesmen.

Introduced at CES in 1970, the L-100 was built upon the strength of JBL’s highly successful 4310 studio monitors.  Just like the auto-racing philosophy of selling on Monday what you ran on Sunday, the audio enthusiast of 1973 saw the L-100 as something to aspire to, including yours truly.  They must have stapled my picture up in the employees lounge because the next time I visited the HiFi shop, all of the salesmen were instantly busy.  The grail I pursued was in the far back room, with all of the McIntosh gear and was off limits.  I knew the guys inside listening would have to come out of there sooner or later, and when they did, I would dash right in.

Twenty minutes later, I got my chance. And while my first listen of these speakers would last only about 90 seconds before I was shown to the door, it was awesome.  This was the way Led Zeppelin was supposed to sound, larger than life, powered by the glow of a McIntosh MC275 power amplifier.  Little did I know it would be more than 30 years before I would acquire either of these treasures.

The 48 cent solution

After a brief listening session with the JBL L-166’s that now reside at staff writer Jerold O’Brien’s house, I was still jonesing for a pair of L-100’s.  That metal-dome tweeter and a bit of a midrange hole present in the L-166’s just wasn’t doing it for me, so I didn’t miss sending them away, though the sculpted metal grilles were very cool.  Over the recent Memorial Day weekend, my JBL dreams would come true.  They had been taunting me all week, hovering at $299, so I was wondering if I’d actually be able to steal them for that price.  The owner specified local pickup and I was feeling lucky after a pep talk from Henry Rollins just the night before.  “Shopping on Ebay is war. You have to win it!”

A recent article on Ebay strategy said to always add 49 cents to the dollar amount you are bidding, and in the end, that’s what saved the day.  As I counted down from the last 10 seconds, and pressed “confirm” with two seconds on the clock, I had bid $410.49 and the JBL’s were mine.  Yeah.  A quick email to the seller confirmed that I could pick them up immediately.  “I’ve got 10 emails already wanting these, so if you can’t make it here today, I’ll sell them to someone else.”  I was off.  Incidentally, I actually won them by 48 cents; the bid before mine was $410.01.

$350-$500 seems to be the going price for a clean pair of L100’s, more if they have the grilles.  Thanks to the guys at Foam Trends (www.foamtrends.com), not having the grilles is not a deal breaker.  They can make you new foam in any of the standard JBL colors, or charcoal grey.  You can purchase a pair of foam inserts for $129 and a pair of frames for $129 if yours aren’t perfectly spiffy.  The coveted JBL badge is a little tougher to find, but usually $25-$50 for a clean pair.  Fortunately, the badges on these were pristine.

The owner’s manual can be downloaded from the JBL website at no charge, and there are a handful of people selling copies for about $12.  Used drivers seem to be plentiful, with woofers costing about $125 each.  Midrange drivers are in the $50-$150 a pair range, and the tweeters slightly less.

Much like buying a vintage car, buying the best example you can afford is usually the best long-term strategy.  A bargain pair might end up costing more in the long run by the time you find all the right bits.

Back to the 70’s

Walking into the seller’s house was definitely a blast to the mid ’70s.  His house was full of ’70s vintage speakers and amplifiers, but primarily speakers.  He had the L-100’s playing through a MCS receiver, and at that moment, I wondered if perhaps I had let fond memories get the best of me.  Most of the women with whom I went to high school look pretty scary on Facebook these days, and the sound of these speakers were giving me the same reality bitch slap.

Bright, bright, bright.  Now I remember why, after I became a “serious” audiophile, we used to smirk that JBL stood for “junk but loud.”  But I had already paid the man and after all, there were speaker vultures waiting to grab the booty.  So we loaded this almost flawless pair of L100’s into my trunk, and I was back in the studio in just over an hour.

The only thing missing was the period-correct square foam grilles that the L100’s were famous for.  The original owner had them recovered in orange grille cloth some time ago.  I started with a vintage Marantz 2275 receiver, but this sounded much too bright.  With the trusty Marantz 8b in the shop, I ended up finding bliss with the PrimaLuna Prologue 1 that we reviewed last issue.  The midrange magic and softer top end of the EL34 tubes was the perfect match for the somewhat forward L-100’s.

Source material was provided by the Sooloos music server via the dCS Paganini stack, fed directly into the ProLogue 1.  Standard Radio Shack 14-gauge speaker wire was used, just like back in the ’70s.

Surprisingly good

I queued up a late ’60s/early ’70s superset on the Sooloos and eased back into the listening-room couch for a pleasant session.  Granted, these speakers did not have the finesse that my GamuT S-9’s possess, but they did rock.

Overall, top-to-bottom coherence was fantastic and the midrange clarity was well on par if not better than a lot of today’s speakers in the $1,000 – $2,000 range.  The soundstage presented was incredibly wide, easily extending a few feet beyond the speaker boundaries.  Switching back to a modern pair of high-quality speakers reveals what is missing; precise spatial cues and low-level resolution is not presented with the L100’s.  But that’s not the point.  Much like another one of my favorite speakers, the Vandersten 2 series, these do a nice job with what they do handle, and if you use them with the music of the period, you might be surprised by just how much fun these speakers can be with the right amplifier.

After spending some time with various speaker placement options, the L100’s worked best well out in the room, about five feet from the walls, only about six feet apart, with the cabinets about 17 inches from the floor. This floor position ended up being similar to the perfect position for the Harbeth 40.1’s.

If you enjoy a fair amount of classic rock music, there’s a pretty good chance some of your favorites were mastered on the pro version of the L100, so they give you a great feel of what these classics really sounded like in the control booth.  Trendy adult chemical amusement aids optional, of course.

Do you need a pair?

Listening to “I’m So Afraid” from Fleetwood Mac’s Fleetwood Mac shook the floor with the opening bass line.  Moving along to 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love” from The Original Soundtrack offered up a huge soundstage in both the left-right and front-back dimensions.  Hours later, I found myself pretty enamored with this slice of audio’s history.  The JBL L-100 was definitely a lot better than I remembered, especially with tube amplification.

My only curiosity was that considering how good these speakers sound at moderate levels, why did so many engineers feel the need to crank the hell out of these in the studio?  -Jeff Dorgay

Many of us have fond memories of Dual turntables.  In the mid to late 70’s, these automatic, idler drive tables were top contenders, with stiff competition coming from the likes of Thorens and Garrard.  Built like tanks, the underside was full of springs, gears and of course the big rubber idler wheel.  About this time, Linn’s LP-12 hit the scene, offering a new level of musicality along with the direct drive tables from the Japanese that both stole some of the thunder from the idler drives.  Dual would go on to produce belt (and direct) drive models before fading off into oblivion in the mid 80’s, but their legacy was definitely the idler drive tables.

With the vinyl revolution showing no sign of losing steam, many music lovers have turned to the classic turntables as an alternative to some of the budget offerings from Rega, Pro-Ject and Music Hall.  On the upper end of the price range, the classic Garrard and Thorens tables have really been making a comeback in audiophile circles, with fully restored versions easily fetching prices in the $3,000 -$5,000 range, with diehard idler enthusiasts claiming better bass response and more lifelike tonality.

If you’d like a taste of the idler sound at a more reasonable price, consider a Dual. Whether you are new to spinning vinyl, or trying to find something to play those old Foghat albums that you’ve had tucked in the closet since high school, this is a fun record player and it’s fully automatic.  Which can really come in handy if you revisit the state of mind that you were in the last time you listened to Foghat…   If you want your audiophile buddies to think that you’ve really lost your mind, grab some dollar selections from your local record store or thrift shop and stack ’em!  Who needs iTunes and Cover Flow, when you can load up five albums to play non-stop.

The two most popular models, the 1219 and the 1229 are trading on eBay between $75 and $225, but this is not the way you want to roll.  Like any fairly complex mechanism, turntables don’t respond positively to being bounced around in an adverse manner. Your chances of getting a clean example, and it not getting trashed in shipping by a non-audiophile are slim to none.

A turnkey solution

Just call Bill Neumann at www.fixmydual.com.  He’s taken his hobby of restoring these tables and turned it into a full time job, thanks to the demand and word getting around on the Internet.  He charges anywhere from about $100 – $300 to rebuild a table, depending on condition, or you can buy a fully restored model with cartridge installed for about $425, which is just what our publisher did.  While a fair price for a budget turntable, this is a testament to the staying power of these turntables, as they were $185 when new in 1970-1972.

“I’ve always got at least a few on the shelf, ready to go,” Neumann said when we talked to him.  His cartridge of choice; a vintage Shure, or the Grado Black.  As the big cheese just happened to have a spare Grado Red hanging around, that was the direction this table, a 1219 ended up taking.  Neumann added, “The major difference between the 1219 and the 1229 is the later model has a window with a strobe for the speed control.  They had to do that to keep up with Technics, but it’s really not necessary, these tables hold their speed very well.”

This is the perfect solution for the vinyl newbie, because the table arrives meticulously packed.  All you need to do is affix the counterweight and set the tracking force.  You’ll be playing music in five minutes.

Definitely a vintage sound

After the photos were taken we decided to explore the limits of the 1219’s performance envelope, before I took it home to a more “vintage” environment.  I’m sure most Dual owners won’t be hooking this baby up to a $12,000 Audio Research REF Phono 2, but it was easy to see just what the table was capable of when doing so. It is definitely as I remember them sounding, somewhat warm and wooly, yet friendly.  There is definitely something to be said for “the idler arm sound”, with a nice weight to the lower end.

Back in my batcave, hooked up to a recently restored Harmon Kardon Citation 18 preamp and Dynaco Stereo 70 driving a pair of JBL L-166’s, the sound was full and enjoyable with killer bass.  When comparing this to a Rega P2 with Elys cartridge, the Rega table definitely has a livelier sound with more midrange detail; now I remember how and why these tables were so exciting back in the 70’s when they arrived on the scene. However, I suspect that the 1219 may be severely limited by the cheapo stock tonearm cable.  My tweakazoid sensibilities might get the better of me, so don’t be surprised if you see a follow up article after I’ve played with this table a little more, experimenting with some cable options as well as a few more budget cartridges.  I’m convinced there is more performance to be had from the 1219.

I just couldn’t bring myself to use fully automatic mode, but the auto return feature was handy when I was getting busy later that evening.  Foghat never sounded so good.

www.fixmydual.com

For more product information:

http://www.dual-reference.com

With an 11-year production run that ended in 1993, the Nakamichi Dragon epitomized cassette-deck technology, and to many enthusiasts, it was considered the Holy Grail of what could be accomplished at 1 7/8 i.p.s.   A three-head deck with discrete heads for recording, playback and erase, it used Nakamichi’s NAAC auto azimuth correction to optimize playback azimuth on any tape played.  While some other Nakamichi models used an adjustable record azimuth, the Dragon concentrated on the playback domain.  This resulted in a Nakamichi deck that could play back tapes recorded on other manufacturers’ machines as well as doing a great job with pre-recorded tapes.

Alas, the Dragon ceased to be at the end of the analog age.  Soon after its introduction, the Compact Disc would arrive on the scene and shortly thereafter become the ubiquitous format of choice.  Either way, with a list price of $2,499 in 1982, this was truly a high-end machine.  I always wanted a Dragon, but its spell eluded me until just recently.

These days, the toughest part of keeping any tape machine running smoothly (or any piece of vintage gear for that matter) is finding a good tech.  With Nakamichi decks, there are no new parts being produced because the company disappeared into bankruptcy in 2002 after being acquired by a Chinese firm.  Fortunately, plenty of parts decks remain for sale on the internet, and there are a few acknowledged masters who keep the Nakamichi flame burning brightly.

Thanks to a suggestion from a friend, I found Willy Hermann of Willy Hermann Services.  You can find him on the web at:  www.willyhermannservices.com .  A life-long Nakamichi technician who also owned a few high-end retail stores, he now concentrates on Nakamichi and Krell repair.  Mr. Hermann was very helpful on the phone and gave me perhaps the best tip of all: “Pick one up that doesn’t work. They almost all need repair anyway, so don’t pay a premium price for a used Dragon.”  Fortunately, the person from whom I purchased the deck on eBay for $410 was willing to ship it straight to Hermann, after a little convincing that I wasn’t trying to pull an eBay scam on him.

Hermann’s service came to just under $600 and required six hours of his labor and about $40 worth of parts.  As it turned out, I had bought pretty much a basket-case deck; the record and play heads needed repair as well as most of the transport assembly. But I’ve heard of people spending more-than twice this much on a deck that still needed a going over.  If your heart is set on a Dragon, plan on spending $1,200 – $1,600 by the time you are done.  If you aren’t as adventuresome as I am, look for a deck on Audiogon that has been recently serviced by Hermann, and make sure they have all the paperwork.  It’s a lot like buying a vintage Porsche 356; you’re going to have to spend the money one way or another if you want it to run right.

A classic transformed

Hermann sent me a note when the Dragon arrived, and since I was buried with my duties here, told him not to rush the job.  Two weeks later, it arrived on my doorstep, packed way better than it did when it left the Nakamichi factory.  As I saw the care that was taken in packing this machine, any doubts I had about its performance began to fade  away.  After all, it was a little chancy to buy a relatively expensive tape deck from a stranger, ship it to another stranger, pay them both and hope all would turn out well.

But that’s what happened.  Once the photos were taken for this article, the deck was installed in my main system and connected directly to the single-ended outputs of the Audio Research Reference Phono 2 with the Oracle Delphi V/SME iV.VI/Koetsu Urushi Blue combination, and I recorded a few tracks.  The result was breathtaking.  On many levels, it rivaled open-reel performance.  Granted, when comparing the same track to my J-Corder Technics 1500 recorded at 15 i.p.s., the compact cassette gave up a little ground, but not much, especially with metal tape. The open-reel deck may have more image depth, but the Dragon has more-even bass response and remarkably smooth, extended highs.

I dug out a few pre-recorded tapes from my collection and cued up some Tangerine Dream, recorded on Cr02, and I was amazed by the results.  A number of non-audiophile friends couldn’t believe I was listening to a lowly cassette, and a pre-recorded one at that.  Our resident HMEC (human musical encyclopedia & collector) Tom Casselli sent me a MoFi recording of Dark Side of the Moon. “Dude, if you have a Dragon, you should be the keeper of this tape.”   Yeah, it was cool and now the hunt for a few more MoFi cassettes is on.

But making mix tapes is still the most fun thing you can do with a cassette deck.  A good music server makes this somewhat redundant, but if you have a substantial vinyl collection, it’s a great way to spend an evening with a glass of your favorite adult beverage and a pile of albums, figuring out just how many tracks you can fit on one side of a TDK SA 90.  If you’re really good, you can run music right to the end of both sides of the tape.  Just the way we did it back in the late ’70s.

A visit worth taking

In the past, cassette decks have left me cold, trading convenience for ultimate sonic performance. But the Dragon is in a class of its own.  I truly wish I had sprung for one when they were introduced instead of buying the CD player that my local HiFi dealer convinced me was the wave of the future.

Even though music servers have all but made the mix tape obsolete, there is still something special about planning out a few custom tapes that you create yourself.  If this sounds like fun to you, watch eBay for the Nakamichi you desire (I highly suggest a Dragon) and give Willy a call.  You’ll be glad you did.  -Jeff Dorgay

The MV 50 was one of Conrad-Johnson’s earliest vacuum-tube power amplifiers, utilizing EL34/6CA7 output tubes, with a modest power output of 45 watts per channel.  As is the way at CJ, this design was steadily improved over the years in the form of the MV-52, MV-55, MV-60 (and the 60SE, which utilized 6550 output tubes for more power) to the recent LP-70 power amplifier, which also uses 6550s, and CJ’s latest CJD Teflon capacitors.  More about those capacitors later.

CJ’s first vacuum-tube power amplifier that used 6550 output tubes, the MV-75, was introduced in mid 1979,.  The following year, they introduced the MV-45, which was an EL34-based amplifier.  Both models then went through A and A1 revisions.  The MV-50 was built from 1985 to 1990 and had a similar tube complement with an original retail price of $1,485. I was always a huge fan of CJ tube preamplifiers, starting with their PV-1. But from the beginning of my HiFi journey, I felt that a high-powered solid-state amplifier was required to get the job done.  Chalk it up to owning and selling Phase Linear back in the late ’70s.

Shortly after I moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, in the late ’80s, a local HiFi dealer put the full-court press on me and insisted that I buy an MV-50, which sounded great in his shop driving a pair of Vandersteen 2Ci’s.  My Spica TC-50’s didn’t need a lot of juice and I couldn’t play them terribly loud living in an apartment anyway, so I took the bait and brought home this stark-looking tube amplifier for the weekend.  An hour later, after the tubes had fully warmed up, I was in heaven – the TC-50’s never sounded so good.

At the beginning of the week, I returned to the dealer with a wad of cash and my Adcom 555 in tow.  Hard to believe that a 45-watt-per-channel amplifier with “less than one percent distortion at full output” would replace that monster solid-state amp, but I’d never been happier.  It wasn’t long before a CJ PV-10 preamp was sitting on my rack to match the MV-50 amplifier, and I was a full-blown tube junkie.  Like so many audiophiles, I had the itch to try something else, even though I didn’t realize there was some serious magic going on here, so the MV-50 went to a good friend.  It’s worth mentioning that said “friend” tormented me for years about letting go of this little jewel…

Over the years, many other amplifiers have moved in and out of my sound room, but the memory of the MV-50 remained.  I managed to find another one in excellent shape, which ended up mated to my PV-1 that had been sitting on the shelf for some time, but a good friend needed a budget system and once again, I became the Santa Claus of CJ.

About a year ago, CJ announced that they would be offering an upgrade path to select models utilizing their CJD Teflon capacitors, which looked intriguing.  Seeing the MV-50 on the list, the hunt began.  Fortunately, it didn’t take long until I was able to find a very clean MV-50 that had a “slight buzz” in the left channel.  Should you decide to follow my lead and take this path, concentrate on cosmetics, as there are no remaining MV-50 front panels left in the CJ factory.  Remember, it’s going in for service anyway.

Even though this particular MV-50 did have that buzz in the left channel, it sounded just as I remembered them, lush and inviting.  Little did I know about the secret behind this amplifier. For on that later.

The Upgrade process

In 2003, CJ designed a series of Teflon capacitors for their products taking their traditional, slightly romantic tonality to a new level.  None of the new products featuring these capacitors lost any of the midrange magic or tonal richness for which CJ is famous. But the new generation featured extension at both ends of the frequency spectrum that was not present before.  In addition to more transparency, the newest CJ products have  more dynamic contrast and impact.  Combining the new capacitors, their latest wide-bandwidth output transformers and what they had learned in more than 30 years of amplifier design resulted in today’s series of LP power amplifiers.

Thanks to their commitment to build quality, many of their original amplifiers are still in service today.  When I visited the factory in October, there were a number of vintage CJ amplifiers in for service and upgrades.  Lew Johnson told me, “Many of our customers hang on to their old gear when they upgrade and use it in a second or even third system, so it made a lot of sense to offer the upgrade program.”

The MV-50 you see here was built in July 1987 and as you might expect, the electrolytic capacitors in the power supply are about at the end of their lives.  So in addition to the C1 capacitor upgrade, I had the power supply rebuilt, too.  Now featuring polypropylene capacitors in the power supply, all of the electrolytic capacitors are gone from the circuit.  As I watched Lew and his senior tech Jeff Fischel measure a few things underneath the chassis, Jeff smiled and said, “With all film capacitors under the hood, this amplifier will easily last another 35 years, if not longer.”

The power-supply mod will add another $500 to the bill, but it’s well worth the expense.  It would be a shame to spend the time and expense to have the Teflon capacitors installed only to have a power-supply failure at a later date.  Shipping 60 pounds isn’t cheap, and every time you put that amplifier in a box, you run the risk of loss or physical damage. So I suggest taking care of everything while your amplifier is at the factory.

CJ is making every effort to turn the amplifiers around in about 7-10 working days.  In addition to bench testing every upgraded amplifier, they spend some time listening to it in their sound room to make sure everything is right.

A change for the better

I’ve been listening to an MV-50 on and off for the past 25 years, so its overall sonic signature is burned into my memory: a seductive midrange that draws you in to the presentation, but a little bit rolled off on top with a slightly flabby bass response.  But with a sufficiently efficient pair of speakers, you’d probably never notice.  The folks at CJ were kind enough to put a few hours on the MV-50 before sending it back home, but as with any modern HiFi component that has Teflon capacitors in the circuit, it will take about 400-500 hours to realize its full sound potential.  Out of the box, your “new” MV-50 will sound somewhat thin and you might even shake your head and wonder what happened to the magic that was in the amplifier you sent away.  It’s there. It’s just going to take some time to return.

At about 250 hours, the amplifier will come out of its “fog” and the luscious midrange you remembered will return, improving steadily for the next 250 hours.  As neither TONE nor CJ suggest leaving a tube power amplifier playing unattended, this may take you a bit longer than it would to fully break in a solid-state component.  As this is probably 10 percent of the tubes’ rated lifetime, I would highly suggest procuring a cheapo set of EL-34’s for the first few hundred hours of the burn-in ritual.

Once you get over the hump of putting some hours on those new capacitors, the MV-50 is a completely different beast.  While Lew reminded me that it does not possess the ultra-wide bandwidth output transformers of the current amplifiers, the improvement is so huge in every way, it’s tough not to be really excited. It’s kind of like putting a new crate motor with fuel injection in your vintage Camaro.

Best of all, the work was done at the factory by the people who build these amplifiers every day, not some hack who works in the basement.  Johnson laughs as we discuss this.  “You wouldn’t believe some of the stuff we’ve seen done to our amplifiers,” he said. “Some of it isn’t even safe.  At that point, we have to call the customer and tell them what it will cost to undo what’s been done or we can’t even proceed.”

While using the new MV-50 was slightly overkill with CJ’s flagship GAT preamplifier that I heard in their sound room, this little amp wasn’t the least bit out of place driving a pair of Wilson Sophia’s. Even with the fresh Teflon caps, it possessed a greater degree of weight than any MV-50 I’d ever heard.

Fortunately, when the MV-50 arrived back on my doorstep, it was accompanied by the new CJ ET3 SE preamplifier, which is essentially a stripped-down version of the GAT  with a TEA-2SE phono preamplifier built in.  We have a full review in the works, but for $5,000, this is an amazing combination for the audiophile wanting the best CJ has to offer at a more-affordable price.  The combination with the upgraded MV-50 proved to be out of this world.

The value proposition

If you start from scratch and seek out a used MV-50 to have updated, you should be able to find a clean example in the $700 to $900 range.  Add another $1,500 to have the C1 capacitor upgrade and the power supply rebuilt and you will have a 45-watt-per-channel tube power amplifier that will be on par with (if not outperform) anything in that price category today.

Should another friend need a nice tube amp, they can find their own. This one is going to be buried with me.

Epilogue: A final word from Lew Johnson

Shortly after finishing my amplifier, I received an interesting email from Lew.  Tracing the serial number more carefully, it turns out that this amplifier was the only MV-50 they sold to Esoteric Audio in July 1987.  So after a long journey from Arizona to Chicago, and then to the East Coast, the MV-50 was found by me on the Audio Circle forum in Denver.  After going on a trip to CJ and back, this amplifier should be on a frequent flier program!  It’s certainly great to have it back.

Oracle burst on the scene in 1979 with the Delphi turntable, and to many, set a new benchmark for analog playback. The Oracle also blazed a new trail for turntable aesthetics; its open suspended chassis and clear acrylic plinth dramatically contrasted with those of the then-voguish British tables. Linn and Rega owners were rather taken back by the new Canadian in the neighborhood. What’s more, the era’s audio magazines piled on the praise. After dropping $2,000 and adding a tonearm, many listeners (including yours truly) found themselves in analog bliss. However, back then, two grand represented a ton of cash to spend on a turntable; my car wasn’t worth $2,000 in 1979.

A couple years later, Oracle introduced the Alexandria, which was not only half the price ($995, including tonearm) but more conventional in appearance. The Premier tonearm included with the Oracle looks very similar to the Jelco arm of the day, and was simple to set up. It has a similar counterweight to that of the Rega RB300 but uses a nylon filament-mounted anti-skate weight and a VTA adjustment system not unlike that of the Triplanar tonearm. And the tonearm is terminated with a pair of RCA jacks on the rear of the turntable base, so you could use your choice of interconnects. Remember, this was long before tonearm cables boasted four-figure pricetags.

Whereas the Delphi had a more sophisticated AC motor, the Alexandria uses a simpler mechanism. It does have one major advantage over its more expensive sibling, though. Speed adjustment is located on the front of the Alexandria and can be adjusted with your finger rather than via the tiny, ten-turn potentiometer adjustment found on the Delphi’s motor pod. Both tables share the sorbothane “Groove Isolator” semi-squishy turntable mat, yet the Alexandria’s platter isn’t as massive as that belonging to the Delphi. The former features a two-piece, subplatter/platter arrangement that looked very similar to the Linn LP-12.

A suspended subchassis, just like the one in the Delphi, and equipped with three spring-loaded towers, is located underneath the conventional plinth. Upon further inspection, the spring arrangement looks just like that of the Delphi. However, Oracle’s tech department reveals that the Delphi springs are unique to that model and will not work in the Alexandria.

A Long Run

Oracle produced four different variations on the Alexandria, making incremental improvements on each one, until the line culminated with the MK IV. These days on the used market, most Alexandrias tend to be earlier MK 1 and MK 2 versions since they were produced for the longest period of time.

Clean examples of the MK 1 and MK 2 versions often range between $600 and $800. But be aware that the metal subchassis can often be cracked or damaged, and is usually a costly repair.  Most tables also no longer have a functioning auto lift. Oracle has indicated that it can bring the older tables back to life, but shipping to Canada isn’t cheap.  Plan on spending another $300 to $700 to get a substandard Alexandria back in shape.  The one pictured here is an MK 1 and is actually number 53 produced!

Oracle Director of Operations Jacques Riendeau f informed me that there should be 36 volts at the tip of the DC adaptor and that the potentiometer was somewhat of a weak link in the turntable. You’ll know if the potentiometer needs attention if the table will not hold stable speed. Chances are 50/50 that you will be able to spray contact cleaner inside and get it back in operation, but if not, send it to Oracle. If possible, find an Alexandria that comes with its original box.

The Sound

When properly set up, the Alexandria is still a formidable turntable. In keeping with the vintage ethos of this column, I mounted a blue NOS Ortofon MC20 moving coil cartridge and set it to track at the factory specification of 1.8 grams. If first played Little Feat’s Waiting For Columbus, the double album live set from Mobile Fidelity. To take listening a step further, I chose the pressing I bought in 1980 instead of the current remaster.

There’s no mistaking this table for anything else. Having used an Oracle turntable sporadically since 1980 (Delphi, Delphi MK 2, Alexandria MK 1, and currently, a Delphi MK V) I’m familiar with the Oracle sound that tends to be fast and dynamic, with excellent dynamic contrast. The table’s suspension does a great job at isolating the platter from the environment and offering a quick, punchy low end.

When comparing the sound of my Delphi V with the new Ortofon MC20 Super, I was impressed with how the Alexandria is capable of performing; it still does a great job with the musical fundamentals and provides a very liquid, analog experience. Where a similarly vintage Linn LP12 seems slow and pondersome by comparison, the Alexandria is lively, and doesn’t sacrifice the LP-12’s midrange magic. Arguments continue about which model is superior, but I could live happily ever after with the Alexandria.

Cleanliness Is Key

If you can find a well-preserved example of the Alexandria, it’s tough to beat for the money, even if the auto lift does not work properly. If you choose to abandon the standard factory arm, there are boards available for SME arms as well. A used 309 or perhaps even a 3009 could be an excellent choice for this table with the right cartridge.  Just be sure to adjust the suspension accordingly.

It’s great to see Oracle getting ready to produce the Alexandria again, and the company is talking about a price of about $3,995. Yes, it’s a far cry from the original cost, but still about half that of a current Delphi VI. And given the new model’s pricing, a full restoration on a vintage Alexandria might prove to be a bargain, indeed.  -Jeff Dorgay

With Technics recently abandoning production of its venerable SL-1200 model, direct-drive turntable fans must either purchase new models from high-end producers like Brinkmann or find used models from sources like eBay or Audiogon.

Of course, the 1970s and early 1980s signaled the heyday of direct-drive turntable manufacturing. Brands like Kenwood, Pioneer, Technics, Sansui, Sony, and Denon competed for domination. Their products stood in direct opposition to belt-drive tables from Linn, Thorens, and Rega. Whereas belt-driven models were quite simple, direct-driven machines were massive, over-engineered, and technically sophisticated. Emphasis was placed on perfect speed stability and isolation. And while belt-drive companies’ hype machines seemed to have success in turning audiophiles away from direct-drive tables, mainstream music lovers purchased tons of direct-drive units before mass-level vinyl playback faded away during the late 80s. There’s something to be said about the merits of the direct-drive engineering prowess.

No Lightweight

One of Denon’s top-line models from 1982, the DP-62L featured here is in ideal operating and physical condition. Mint, these turntables regularly fetch $500 to $700, with a quality dust cover coming a bonus. Considering they originally sold for $595 in 1982, the level of retained value is excellent. This particular DP-62L was purchased on eBay for $550 (with local pickup) and sold by the original owner. The unit’s handsome rosewood/mahogany wood base, set off by the massive motor assembly, aluminum die-cast platter, smoked dust cover, and sophisticated tone arm, commands attention.

It’s heavy too, weighing in at just over 25 pounds. And a truly excellent find, as the seller not only had the original owner’s manual (sadly, no original box) but both the straight tonearm wand with fixed headshell and the S-shaped wand with removable headshells, similar to those on the Technics SL-1200. Such flexibility, along with the ability to adjust VTA, makes comparing cartridges a breeze. The arm also features a user-adjustable electronic damping mechanism to eliminate stray resonances. Semi-automatic in operation, the DL-62L requires you to manually cue the tonearm at the beginning of a record but automatically lifts when an LP finishes playing. Handy!

Serious Listening

TONE publisher Jeff Dorgay used the Denon with a Lyra Dorian MC cartridge with excellent results, but my journey began with a Sumiko Blackbird high-output MC cartridge. It didn’t take long to get the ‘table dialed in, and it was easy to detect the Denon’s signature. Just as I remembered, the bass response was deep, the stability rock solid, and boy, was this ‘table quiet!

I immediately noticed such characteristics when playing Eric Bibb’s Friends. Along with that of duet partner Guy Walker, the singer’s deep, resonant voice appeared out of a silent background. The voices were in stark contrast to the twin twelve-string guitars’ quick, percussive strumming, which possessed great bite and no glare. You can’t get this kind of depth from one of today’s $500 turntables. Next up, “Mami Gato” from Medeski, Martin & Wood’s Note Bleu. The Denon easily captured the fat sound of Chris Wood’s acoustic bass while delineating John Medeski’s piano and losing none of the drum cymbals’ shimmer.

Conspiracy and Redemption

In listening to “BK’s Broiler” from Bruce Katz’ Crescent Crawl, I was impressed with the ease with which this modestly priced turntable/arm/cartridge combination breezed through the most demanding chord progressions. Yet one thought kept nagging me: Did the audiophile press unfairly dismiss direct-drive turntables in the 80s? Based on the performance of this ‘table, I would have to say yes.

But there was still more performance to wring from this combination. Swapping the Blackbird for the newly released Ortofon MC20 Super cartridge, reviewed in this issue, proved a definite upgrade. Replaying the aforementioned cuts yielded even better results; the bass had more control and the treble went from great to gorgeous. Digging out an RCA Living Stereo recording of Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 (“Unfinished”), with Fritz Reiner and the CSO, offered strings arranged left to right and front to back in perfect proportions within a deep soundstage. The character of the violins? Outstanding.

Being a tweakosaurus, I started wondering about upgrading various parameters on this robust platform. A quick Internet search revealed that others have had the same ideas, and have added damping material to the base and platter, with excellent results. Replacing the cheesy tonearm cable with a pair of RCA jacks (allowing for the use a premium pair of interconnects and an improved platter mat) also pays dividends.

If you want to get really wacky, you could hardwire a new tonearm cable or modify the plinth to accept a better tonearm. Should you ache for improvements but lack the prowess to complete the tasks, visit http://vinyl-revolution.com, which offers a wide range of vintage direct-drive tables. The company comes across older Denon models on a regular basis, and sells them with most tweaks already in place. Vinyl Revolution will even mount a cartridge of your choice if you aren’t comfortable doing so.

Solid Value

While Denon still offers one direct-drive turntable, it pales in comparison to the DP-62L. It affords a level of sound quality that, today, will probably set you back about $2,000. So, yes, paying $700 for a flawless DP-62L constitutes a bargain. The hunt is worth the payoff: If your analog experience is limited to budget belt drives, one of these beauties will pleasantly surprise you.

MartinLogan’s full-range CLS is the speaker often cited for gaining the company a legion of fans, but if you dig a bit deeper, you’ll find another speaker with similar loyalty—the Aerius, which later became the Aerius i. Speaking as someone who’s had prolonged experience with both models, the CLS’ larger-than-life soundstage and breathtaking transparency was tough to beat, especially as vinyl headed for its sunset and many made the move to compact disc. Indeed, the CLS possessed so much resolution that it took only about 30 seconds to convince the uninitiated that the CD was no match for the LP.

When I moved to a smaller living space in the late 80s, the CLS had to go, and I temporarily ended up in the Acoustat camp. While the 1+1s were pleasant, they lacked the detail that made the MartinLogan speakers intoxicating. But then, in 1992, MartinLogan introduced the Aerius, which mated an 8-inch dynamic woofer to an electrostatic panel that was about 30% smaller than the one fitted to its larger Sequel. The Aerius was less expensive as well, costing just $1,995. The audiophile press raved; Stereophile’s John Atkinson claimed the woofer/panel integration to be “virtually flawless.”

Building on the success of the Aerius, the Aerius i came out in 1996 and remained in production until 2000. The i featured an improved crossover network, which lowered the critical crossover frequency from 500hz to 450hz and allowed the ESL panel handle more of the critical midrange frequencies. The new model was an improvement in every way, but did feature a lower minimum impedance (2 ohms with the Aerius; 1.7 ohms with the Aerius i) that made them tougher to drive with low-powered tube amplifiers.

Just As I remembered

The pair of Aerius i speakers featured here were supplied by MartinLogan for a comparison with its new ElectroMotion speaker that’s featured on page XXX of this issue. After allowing the panels to charge for a full day, the Aerius i sounded just as I remembered, featuring a smooth upper register, excellent integration between woofer and the ESL panel, and solid bass performance. While it’s been close to 20 years since these speakers were in my system, I’m as astonished by their performance now as I was the day I first uncrated them. I felt they were an amazing value for $2,000 then; considering a clean used pair fetches only $700-$900, the i makes for an excellent building block for a high-performance albeit moderately priced system.

MartinLogan’s ESL panels have a finite lifespan of about 15 years, so if you plan on hanging on to the Aerius for any length of time, budget for a panel replacement. This requires both DIY skills and between $500 and $700 for raw materials. The panels are still available from MartinLogan and are produced at their Kansas facility.  Unless the previously owned speakers you purchase are flawless, plan on exchanging the panels in the near future. Negotiate the price accordingly.

Performance the modestly powered tube amplifiers at my disposal was mixed. The CJ MV-50 and PrimaLuna Dialog 4 with EL34 output tubes (and about 35-45 watts per channel) had no problem driving the Aerius i, yet the vintage Dynaco Stereo 70 struggled, offering boomy and uncontrolled bass as well as a rolled-off high end. Note to tube aficionados: Make certain you can audition the speakers with your amplifier; the more power, the better and if your amplifier offers a 2-ohm tap, that will help.

While these speakers work well with most tube amplification, I’ve always achieved the best balance of musicality, HF extension, and bass control with a vacuum-tube preamplifier and high-current solid-state power amplifier. Should you be assembling a vintage/budget system, there’s a plethora of great amplifiers from which to choose in the $1,000-$2,000 range. But remember, these speakers are very revealing and will benefit from quality over quantity when it comes to power.

Early ESL Magic

The Aerius i had no trouble capturing the delicacy in Loudness’ “In My Dreams” from the Japanese rock legends’ Unleashed in the East album. The song features layers of phased and flanged guitars, which prove a treat for anyone that appreciates pinpoint imaging. An equally intriguing effect came courtesy of Lou Reed’s live Metal Machine Trio album, Creation of the Universe. The record’s atmospheric, edgy quality burst to life on these vintage speakers. Of course, if solo vocalists and acoustic guitarists are your bag, you will be thrilled—that’s the kind of music for which ESL panels were designed.

In fact, harder-edged rock was the only area in which the Aerius fell short. Even swapping the tube amplifiers for the formidable solid-state Burmester 911 mk. 3 failed to deliver the goods. Cranking up Triumph’s Rock and Roll Machine proved fruitless. As the volume levels approached realistic levels, the experience brought my Aerius journey full circle. I remembered why I had to ultimately move on from the pair of speakers that had been my staple for so many years. Joni Mitchell, yes; Jimi Hendrix, no.

Defying Convention

Critics told MartinLogan that a speaker incorporating a dynamic woofer and electrostatic panel couldn’t be done. Yet MartinLogan has continued to refine its hybrid ESL/dynamic woofer concept to the point where on the company’s current speakers, you can play Metallica at realistic levels, increasing the dynamic range and improving the blend between the disparate drivers. Each new model performs better than its predecessor.

But the Aeirus and Aerius i marked a turning point. They nailed the recipe, winning major accolades and loyal fans in the process. Revisiting these speakers only reinforces their excellence. Need a great anchor for a burgeoning high-end system? Look no further.  -Jeff Dorgay

TONEAudio’s Music Annual

By The TONE Staff

A complete list of our record reviews for the past year along with a comprehensive
overview of our concert coverage and artist interviews, with an issue by issue listing
at the end. A perfect recap for your record purchases this year! Keep this one on
your tablet or smartphone to jog your memory.

Cover by Liza Donnelly

There’s no better way to start an argument between audiophiles than to make a “best of” list. So, prepare to put up your dukes. To make the hit to everyone’s ego easier to bear, we’ll define the parameters that make one amplifier more worthy than another, etc. with the following guidelines.

First, we prefer products made by a major manufacturer, meaning that you can still get repairs or, at least, parts. That said, there are a few exceptions on the list. Also, we favor products that work well with other equipment and are somewhat universal in nature. And a product must be a bonafide audio component. No movie theater rejects, thank you.

One of the most enjoyable parts of building a system around vintage gear is that used pieces are often accompanied by a great story, either from the seller or the company that ends up doing the repairs. Yes, like vintage sports cars, vintage hi-fi gear will need repairs: It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when. No matter. Many of those $6,000 amplifiers from the mid 80s that are only $1,200 today represent some of the best bargains going. Most of the technology hasn’t changed much in the last 30 years, so a nice pair of Mark Levinson ML-2s or an Audio Research SP-3 are still darn good investments.

Finally, in keeping with this issue’s budget theme, nothing on this list costs more than $1,500. While there are some incredibly cool amplifiers from McIntosh and Marantz that are both highly coveted and worth the quest, they are becoming as rare as a nice, unmolested Porsche 356—and their prices continue to rise. So how does one go about searching for deals?

Keep an eye on eBay and Audiogon. There’s gold out there. And here’s another tip from the car guys: Always buy the best example you can find cosmetically. Almost anything that’s electronic can be rebuilt, but cosmetics are always expensive, if available at all. It’s tough to find knobs, faceplates, and such for 20-40 year-old amplifiers. Some companies (ARC, CJ, and McIntosh in particular) are fully committed to refurbishing and even rebuilding their older products, realizing the value in snagging brand loyalty via the secondary market.

If possible, buy from a friend. That way you have a much better idea of the care given to a piece of gear over the years. Speaking from personal experience, never buy anything from a cat owner. If the gear isn’t full of hair, chances are high that a kitty peed in the amplifier at least once, especially if it has vacuum tubes. For some reason, cats love to urinate in warm places. Also, never buy used vintage gear that has been “modified.” Most modders are hacks at best and idiots at worst. Keep in mind that professional shops specialize in particular brands of gear and remain devoted to repair and refurbishment. A quick call to the manufacturer will prove telling. Who knows more about your preamp than the company that made it?

CD players are the one component that you should avoid obtaining in used condition. Earlier transports usually used some kind of transit screws to secure the mechanism, and chances are high that along the line, they were lost. This means that a used CD player will probably be destroyed when it gets shipped. If you do take the plunge, again, call the manufacturer to find out if it still stocks transport mechanisms. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

And herewith, the list:

Threshold 400A power amplifier

Typical used price: $500-$700

Not the first class-A power amplifier from amplifier shaman Nelson Pass, but believed by many to be one of his best. One hundred watts of pure class A power with the coolest power indicators you’ll ever see. Many years later, it only takes a few shots of scotch for publisher Jeff Dorgay to wax poetic about the one he owned in the 80s.

A cursory look inside reveals a beefy power supply that will no doubt need some TLC. But spare parts are available, and there are a few people that specialize in restoring this classic. Mr. Pass is even known to crack a smile when this model is mentioned in conversation.

Spica TC-50 speakers

Typical used price: $100-$250

The TC-50 was nothing short of a miracle when introduced at the 1983 CES convention. The small speaker, priced at about $550 per pair, possesses a magic that well exceeds its price. Designer John Bau concentrated on phase response and time alignment to produce a model that has an open character unlike any other. Even though Spica went away around 1990, the TC-50s still boast a very loyal following.

With imaging performance that came close to the best electrostats of the day, the TC-50’s only weakness is its tweeter. While of very high quality, it cannot withstand high power or the least bit of clipping. But tonal accuracy is stunning, and even while listening to a pair today, it’s amazing how well the speaker handles musical fundamentals. In a small room with a great tube amplifier, the TC-50 continues to impress.

Bau still looks back fondly on the TC-50 and, in a recent conversation said, “Just replace that big electrolytic with a similar value film cap and they’ll play for another 20 years. Just don’t crank ‘em.”

Adcom GFA-535 amplifier

Typical used price: $100-$150

While most of the buzz in hi-fi magazines concentrated on the top-of-the-line 200wpc Adcom GFA-555, the 535 was the real sweetheart. For $299, it offered 60 watts per channel with a refinement otherwise unavailable at the time. Most audiophiles passed on it simply because it wasn’t expensive enough to sit in a legitimate high-end system.

Sixty clean watts will drive a wide range of speakers, and the GFA-535 still offers satisfying performance—think of it as the ying to the Stereo 70’s yang. I’ve got one paired with an Audio Research SP-6 in my office system and the results still surprise me.

Mark Levinson 23.5 power amplifier

Typical used price: $1,200-$1,500

One of the most expensive items on our list, this is arguably one of the last great old-school Levinson amps. Offering 200 watts of Class AB power, the 23.5 climbed to the top of the heap in 1991. I revisited this amplifier in Issue 26 and found it a gem to drive speakers that have high current requirements. At 100 pounds, the 23.5 is a “he-man” amplifier, so put it where it’s going to stay. As Portland vintage hi-fi salesman Kurt Doslu likes to say, “Don’t play catch with this one!”

All kidding aside, here’s a well-built power amplifier that can be easily serviced. The 23.5 provides a level of resolution that the new Class-D lightweights can’t match.

Hafler DH-101 preamplifier

Typical used price: $75-$125

The biggest sleeper on the list. The DH-101 was one of Hafler’s first products. Like the Dynaco amplifiers from the 60s, many were built as kits. So try to get a photo of the preamp’s inside to check workmanship. The rare, factory assembled model is the one you want and will only cost about $50 more. With great imaging and a fantastic phonostage, it’s no wonder that, upon introduction, it compared favorably to preamplifiers costing ten times as much. A perfect anchor for a top-notch $1,000 system.

Dynaco Stereo 70 amplifier

Typical used price: $500+

Much like the Porsche 914, the Dynaco Stereo 70 has almost always been criticized, with every basement engineer having his or her own way to get this amplifier “to really sing.”  The truth? Almost all of them suck. Pay the money and get a clean, original model.

This modest amplifier was built by the thousands—more than 350,000, to be exact—with many constructed by hobbyists. Hence, always demand a photo on which the underside cover is removed. Some of the homebrew amps look like a pile of linguini under the hood, the unintended characteristic contributing to the amplifiers’ ill-deserved reputation for being somewhat noisy. Factory-assembled Stereo 70s are coveted by many collectors, but plan on replacing most if not all of the capacitors anyway.

If you are up to the scavenger hunt, a well-sorted Stereo 70 still provides highly musical results. And if you feel really mischievous, paint your Stereo 70 green and tell your friends that it’s a rare Shindo model.

LS3/5a speakers

Typical used price: $1,000+

Originally designed by the BBC as a portable location monitor, the LS3/5A caught on like wildfire in the audiophile world due to its natural midrange. While not much on bass, the speakers were designed with a slight mid-bass bump that makes them sound much better than you might expect. Remember, these were on the US market at the same time as the AR3a, and cost almost as much.

Several Web sites are devoted to this speaker, the most comprehensive being www.ls35a.com. In addition to the great photos, the site gives you the speaker’s proper history as well as what to look for when buying a used pair.

Early originals are getting tougher and tougher to find, but if you can, it’s well worth the effort. Those wanting true BBC sound, look no further.

Conrad Johnson PV-12 preamplifier

Typical used price: $700-$1,100

The PV-12 has the classic CJ sound: Slightly warm and romantic, but it goes a long way at making less-than-amazing recordings sound very pleasant. There are two versions of the PV-12—with and without phono preamplifier. Naturally, the model with phono usually runs about $300 more, but it’s well worth the cost. You’ll never find this good of an outboard phono for such a price. Those craving a more modern CJ sound can send the PV-12 back to the factory for a C1 capacitor upgrade, which offers a wonderful balance between the midrange warmth and punch of the latest CJ components.

NAD 3020 integrated amplifier

Typical used price: $50-$200

Prices widely vary on this one, so our standard advice of getting the cleanest example for the money goes double here. While there are a few different versions of the 3020, most NAD aficionados agree that the first model, still built in the UK, is the best. An absolute mint example runs $200 and is worth every penny, even if it’s now more than 30 years old.

With a distinctively un-grainy solid-state sound and a sonic signature somewhat like that of the original Naim Nait integrated amplifiers, the 3020 is definitely a proponent of “the British sound.” But the real key is balance; the 3020 also included a great headphone amplifier and a solid phonostage. Many budget audiophiles use the 3020 as a preamplifier only. Disconnecting the pre out/main in jumpers means that the modest power supply only has to service the preamplifier section, resulting in dramatically increased sonics when paired with something like a Dynaco Stereo 70 or an Adcom amplifier.

Trivia buffs: It is rumored that the NAD 3020 is the amplifier that brought on the first use of the term “giant killer” in audio journalism. Ah, the good with the bad.

Audio Research SP-3 preamplifier

Typical used price: $1,500

We saved the best for last. Selling for almost three times its original price, the ARC SP-3 is in the same league as the legendary Marantz and McIntosh preamplifiers, but at a much more reasonable price. Thanks to ARC’s commitment to legacy products, you can send it back to the factory for a full rebuild—possibly the best $1,295 value in high-end audio today.

According to ARC’s service department, you get a top-to-bottom rebuild, incorporating much of the technology found in current ARC preamplifiers. Find out more here: http://www.audioresearch.com/SP3-update.html

Yes, there are a hundred more choices, and if you care to continue the debate on TONEAudio’s Facebook page, we’ll be happy to entertain you. Let us know what you think, and tell us about your favorite vintage piece. We might just use it in a future article.

Nakamichi is synonymous with high-performance cassette decks, but not everyone is as familiar with the rest of its electronics. The company’s first attempts at amplifier and preamplifier design, the 400 and 600 series, were nonetheless popular as they followed the tenets of the day with excellent measured ability albeit somewhat compromised sound.

When the compact disc became ubiquitous in the late 80s, demand for Nakamichi cassette decks declined. Still, the manufacturer developed another series of electronics that included the power amplifier you see here as well as a lower-powered model, the PA-5 (100wpc), and a few receivers, all incorporating Stasis technology licensed from Nelson Pass.

Introduced in 1988, the PA-7 retailed for $1,595, a bargain compared to the Threshold S-350e that cost twice as much and sported a rated power output of only 150 watts per channel. Nakamichi’s scale of manufacturing made it easy to grab one of Pass’ best designs at a very reasonable price. Today, clean PA-7s can be found on the used market for $600-$700. According to Pass, the original PA-7 (not the PA-7 series II) is “the one you want.”

If you troll the Internet in search of a unit, insist on seeing pictures and deduct heavily for cosmetic damage. Replacements are unavailable and greatly diminish the resale price should you decide to resell at a future date. Run away screaming from an amplifier that has been “modified.”

Circuit Overview

The PA-7 delivers 200 watts per channel, uses no overall negative feedback (a Pass trademark), and boasts the Stasis section, which consists of a low-power voltage amplifier coupled to the current mirror bootstrap output stage to do all the heavy lifting required for high-power output.

Back in 1989, when Stereo Review featured the PA-7, writer Julian Hirsch measured the PA-7’s output at 253 watts into an 8-ohm load, 400 watts into a 4-ohm load, and 650 watts into two ohms. A quick look under the hood reveals why. A large 700 VA toroidal transformer and a bank of power supply capacitors totaling 132,000 µf proves the PA-7 means business. Such a setup made the PA-7 a perfect choice for demanding loudspeakers and, like the Threshold Stasis amplifiers, it ended up in many systems based around electrostatic speakers or Magnepans. I once used one to drive a pair of Magnepan Tympanis to excellent results.

As a single-ended amplifier, the PA-7’s rear panel is sparse, with a pair of RCA input jacks, an IEC socket for your power cord of choice—little did Nakamichi engineers know that in the 21st century, power cords would cost much more than the original price of the PA-7)—and relatively standard binding posts for speaker output.

A Budget-Conscious Steal

Irresistible at $500, and on display at Portland hi-fi dealer Echo Audio, my newly acquired PA -7 is in great shape. Serving duty in a system consisting of a pair of Magnepan 1.6s along with an Audio Research SP-9 vacuum tube preamplifier (covered in issue 24), the PA-7 has no issue driving the Maggies to sufficient levels with all but the heaviest music.

Putting the amp through its paces with a number of different speakers, and often at high volume, it became warm to the touch, but not as warm as a pure class A amplifier. Much like the Adcom GFA-555, which Pass also designed, the PA-7 features a pair of front-panel LEDs to indicate clipping. When driving the Vandersteen 2CE Signatures or my JBL L-100s, I couldn’t push the speakers hard enough to get the LEDs to illuminate. Switching to the Magnepans, however, verified that the LEDs still worked.

The sound is free of harshness and grain, but a bit veiled when compared to Pass Labs’ current designs. And, as can be expected, the PA-7 lacks the three-dimensionality of the best amplifiers. But for $500, it’s a solid anchor for a budget-minded high-performance system and far superior to what you might purchase new for a similar price.

Woo Audio makes incredible headphone amplifiers in all shapes and sizes. The American manufacturer, which is based in New York, recently introduced its WA7 Fireflies headphone amplifier, which is especially cool. Priced at $999, it incorporates a 32-bit/192-kHz USB DAC and tube-based amplification into a cube that measures about 5 inches on all sides

The Right Phone

Regardless of headphone choice, there’s plenty of tubey delight going on here, and the WA7 includes a big, beefy external power supply to keep its dual 6C45 tubes glowing. Getting funky from the start, with “Shaft’s Cab Ride,” from the Shaft soundtrack, shows the top end of the WA7 to be slightly harsh, which the plethora of horns in this piece exacerbates. Neither the Sennheiser HD 800 nor HD 700 phones do much to quell this harshness. Moving to the HD 650s (cabled by ALO Audio) proves a much more synergistic match, with a smoother response overall. And thanks to a high/low impedance switch on the WA7’s rear panel, a perfect match is even easier to accomplish.

Sifting through the reference pool of phones at the TONE studio provides more insight. The HiFiMAN HE-6 phones lack dynamics with the WA7, but this is no slight to the cube—most headphone amps cannot drive these bad boys. The Grado GS1000 and PS500 phones have a nice, smooth and airy overall balance through the WA7, which even breathes a bit of life into the $15 Star Wars stormtrooper headphones.

Switching to the Audeze LCD 2 and LCD 3 phones is not a bad choice; however, this combination proves a touch recessed in the midrange and at low volumes, and flipping the high/low impedance switch has no effect on these phones. This pairing accentuates well-recorded musical selections. Jack White’s Blunderbuss album comes alive with the LCD 2s, as does Iron and Wine’s The Shepard’s Dog. Led Zeppelin’s classic “Stairway to Heaven” is brilliant, but Iron Maiden’s “Public Enema Number One” falls short, deteriorating into a ball of midrange.

Before you start blaming the source, you should notes that I’m using our publisher’s dCS Vivaldi stack as a digital source, via the line-level RCA inputs. High-res files are supplied by the Aurender S10 server via USB, which does not tilt the results terribly.  Putting the WA7’s DAC through the paces via the S10 is indeed fruitful.

Bottom line: We observed the best results from the WA7 with modest-impedance, dynamic headphones. This is where it really shines.

Down to the Sound

Judged strictly on amplifier performance, the WA7 will not be mistaken for a solid-state product, with a palpable and dimensional midrange that helps to make the headphones disappear. Once your phones of choice are settled upon, concentrating on the WA7 is relatively easy.

Overall bass response is solid and tight with good control. Thomas Dolby’s “I Scare Myself” is weighty through the HD 650s, yet the WA7 keeps the pace locked down, never allowing the meandering piano line to wander out of coherence. Perhaps the weakest part of the WA7’s tonal profile (as mentioned earlier) is the upper register. But again, considering that you are getting a wonderfully performing amp and a great DAC for just under a thousand bucks, the Woo is exceptional.

There really isn’t a major substitution for the 6C45 tube, so this is not a tube-rollers dream amplifier in that respect. Sniffing around the web reveals the Western Electric WE437A as a suitable replacement; however, a pair of these in great shape will set you back half the price of the WA7, so this exercise will have to wait for another day. We are keeping the WA7 in the ever-growing fleet of headphone reference gear, so at some point we will report back if a pair of 437s can be acquired at a reasonable cost.

Midrange is the WA7’s greatest strength, as you might expect for a tube amplifier, with its ability to stretch out into three-dimensional space being a close second. Tosca’s “Me & Yoko Ono” feels as if the LCD 2s have earpads the size of garbage-can lids, with all the little electronic bits zooming past my head. And as Yoko Ono writhes through the title track of Yes, I’m A Witch, proclaiming, “I’m a witch, I’m a bitch,” she sounds scarily larger than life.

Nice DAC

The MA7’s 32-bit/192-kHz asynchronous USB DAC does a great job with all of the high-res files at our disposal, via the Aurender S10 server and a nearby MacBook Pro running Pure Music. While the external power supply is linear, it does benefit from power conditioning and an upgraded power cord. Adding a new Venom 3 cable from Shunyata and a Hydra 2 line conditioner removes a layer of grain and lowers the noise floor of this already quiet amp enough that the upgrades are well worth investigating, especially if you decide to invest in premium headphones.

The amp’s high-resolution digital capability allows you to clearly hear the difference between standard and high-res files. Those with a major investment in HD material will be very happy with the WA7. Listening to practically every Rush album available in HD, I find it tough to go back to straight 16/44.1 files.

A single set of line-level RCA inputs makes light work of connecting the WA7 to an analog source. While it defeats the compactness of the setup, adding a VPI Traveler/Ortofon Rondo Red and Naim Stageline MC preamplifier makes for a more complete system that is arguably smoother than the digital presentation. Spinning the MoFi copy of Beck’s Sea Change is eye (or rather ear) opening, revealing a few details that you’ll never hear with your favorite $2,500 amplifier and $2,500 pair of speakers.

Fantastic!

For anyone wanting a high-performance, compact and aesthetically pleasing desktop or bedside headphone audio system, there’s no better choice that the WA7. It doesn’t matter whether you order it in black or silver; the Woo Audio WA7 Fireflies is a hot little number, with good looks matched by great sound and extreme ease of operation. The only thing missing is an S/PDIF input, which may irk some audiophiles, but as so many headphone listeners use their laptops as a source these days, it’s probably a moot point.

Woo Audio WA7 Fireflies

MSRP:  $999

www.wooaudio.com