Audio Horizons Tube Buffer cooking...

I've received the Audio Horizon Tube Buffer for review and it's now in my reference system, between PS Audio preamp and the BAT VK500. It needs a few more hours to settle but I intend to move it in and out to learn exactly what it does to the sound, and move it up front between cd player and preamp, in case it works differently there. Too soon for impressions....all in due course. Review anticipated in an early Spring edition of Affordable Audio.

Audio Space 3.1 Review up next

The Audio Space Ref 3.1 has been making sweet music in my system for the last two months and I have fallen heavily for it's tubed charms. The full review is published in the Nov 08 edition of Affordable Audio  (and linked directly  in my reviews list sidebar here) but I can say that I've not found so much pleasure in any other component at this price. It's heavy, it's beautiful and it really makes sweet music. I'll be sorry when it's time to send it back!

Later footote -- too late for the A$$Audio review, I tried this with my new Virtual Dynamics David speaker cables. It's a tight fit round the back with these cables but the increase in bass articulation is noticeable from the first. This amp with Davids is just one sweet combo....I hate to argue for these expensive and heavy cables but there is no doubt that on everything I've tried, they work. Any doubts I had about the Audio Space's ability to articulate well in the lower regions are removed - this amp is just first rate. $3300 and you don't need a preamp!

New cartridge on the Aries

Brian, the owner of Sound Mind Audio came round today to install a new Benz Wood Body SL on my original VPI Aries w/ JMW 10 arm. I traded up from a Benz Glider that had served its purpose for the last few years and right now am listening to LP after LP, enjoying the extra life and sparkle the new cartridge has brought to the chain. I'm advised to wait 150 hours before making any judgement but seriously, this new cartridge is already showing serious promise.

The beauty of LPs is partly the physical engagement with music: large sleeves, tangible sources,a real mechanically engineered device for spinning the record, a surface of grooves which a stylus intimately mates, the resulting magic of tiny vibration converted to electricity and amplified. It's a very human process.

All this would count for naught if the resulting sound was not good. With this cartridge I feel I have the kind of upper air extension only previously found on CD but with a smoothness lacking in most digital reproduction. Sure there is background noise, but as legendary English DJ John Peel memorably put it, life has background noise too. With good vinyl this background really is deep in the background. Now I just need to worry about getting a better platform for the table, my Lovan rack with self-made top shelf is just not cutting it (and it seems on A'gon there really are only a handful of platform makers out there, none of them very affrodable). But for now, am grooving.

The absolute, in reality, sound

I sat for a few minutes last night listening to an excellent string quartet (from UT Austin's School of Music) playing in an acoustically engineered conference room -- just me and them in a venue designed to allow a person in the back to speak in a normal voice and be heard by another person at the front. Yes, lots of money was spent on creating this space, part of the new AT&T conference center on campus. That aside, I confirmed in this listening what I have experienced on other occasions when I have had the chance to really listen to live playing of acoustic instruments in a public space: soundstaging is not what you imagine. Here, the quartet did sound like four players, but the music was not etched in space with clear delineation between instruments. I could hear four players, and follow individual lines, but in combination the quartet produced a ball of sound that sat over and around the players. There was no wider-than- placement soundstage, beyond the edge of the soundmakers, there was no great height to the music, it just sounded like four instrument combining in a world of sonics that fleshed out but did not unaturally expand beyond the placement of the instrumentalists on the stage. I closed my eyes and tried to invoke my set-up's reproduction, finding that the ultimate test is not detail or placement, but timbre. Real strings, played by real people, in a real room, have a palpability that makes it obvious you are listening to the real thing. My system is good in comparison, but it's clear now to me that soundstaging is not that important if you want to approach realistic reproduction, a cello sounds like a cello because of the auditory sensations it manifests when a bow is placed in physical contact with a string bound at both ends to the wood. Sound should be in the middle, not tied to location of each speaker but anything more might be recording artifice, not high fidelity.

Von Schweikert Audio Circle comes alive

Seems like there is far more interest in VSA than I thought with my last post. After having my poll linked to a topic in Audio Central, the discussion on Von Schweikert exploded, hitting 2000 views and over 90 postings in 7 days. The poll ended early in support of setting up and, as per the rules of Audio Circle, I found myself the facilitator of a new circle. Albert himself promised to join, and we've had postings form dealers and owners around the world. Interested in joining, go here:
http://www.audiocircle.com/circles/index.php?board=139.0

No interest in a VSA circle?

I asked on Audio Circle if there was interest in starting up a circle for owners of Von Schweikert speakers since my suggestion to VSA directly that they host a forum on their site was met with positive responses but no action in six months. Despite getting more than 500 views, only two people expressed interest so no joy there either (yet). There is a VSA thread on AVS Forum but it tends to deteriorate into 'my speakers are better than yours' noise too often. The Audio Circle forum is usually much better managed but the dedicated circles are quite limited, though thankfully they provide a great outlet for loyal customers of some smaller manufacturers. If interested, let me know. If we get a circle going, I'll invite Albert to join us.

Wyred 4 Sound review goes live

My review of the Wyred4Sound MC4 amp goes live in the September issue of Affordable Audio. This is a bumper issue and a great example of how collective effort by committed people can yield impressive results.

what I'm listening to now

I just completed my review of the W4S MC4 and it will likely make the Sept issue of A$$Audio, we'll see. All round, it's a really interesting amp, no maintenance, dead quiet, soundstage-controlling, high power amp. For the price, if you want power, I am not sure where you could get more of this for the price. But...but...but...I hate to admit it but those folks who claim Class D has something not quite right upstairs (the upper frequency reproduction) might be onto something. 

In my rig at this very moment is something completely different, an Audio Space REf 3.1 integrated amp with KT 88 output tubes. Wow -- only one pair of cables between CD player and amp, then speaker cables to the Von S Vr5SE. Simplicity has it's rewards -- this is a 22-40w unit (depending on how you use it, triode or ultralinear) but you'd never know it. Forget watts, think music. This unit will make any sensitive speaker (and listener) take notice. More anon.

Interesting TAS discussion on evaluation methods

Robert Harley wrote a provocative editorial in this months issue of TAS in which is essentially dismissed blind tests as having value in audio reviewing. Obviously not everyone agrees. To his credit, he has invited an ongoing discussion of this topic at the TAS forum, which you can find here. As you soon realize when you discuss blind or sightless comparison, the topic spawns more heat than light and tends to divide people into camps. Sadly, there are few people who will admit that blind testing is a useful method, one among many, and while it is possible to set up silly tests that offer little real insight into true listening behavior, it is also possible to design reliable tests, albeit at some cost in terms of time and effort.  Human reactions to stimuli (musical or otherwise) are not trivially determined by one variable so we should recognize that by seeing what we are listening to, we are letting more than sound drive our impressions. My main wish is that people could have an intelligent and open-minded discussion of this, but it seems most audio lists where the topic arises soon degenerate into extremist (and often uninformed) rhetoric. Let's see how the TAS site evolves, and cudos to Robert Harley for taking a lead.

The trouble with audio

Ever wonder about the advice you are generally given by the mags to audition in person? Do Stereophile and TAS still labor under the illusion that dealers are out there, willing to support home auditions for their trusted customers? Well, maybe they exist somewhere but the reality of modern purchasing is that dealers with listening rooms are going the way of the dodo, and in the last 5 years, I've not met a single dealer willing to let me hear a pair of speakers in my own room. Am not blaming the dealers, but it suggests that a magazine reviewer hiding behind the 'don't take my word for it, go hear it yourself' is now invoking this as a weak defense for the state of the reviewing art.

There are two aspects here I wish to explore, and it will take several entries. First, buying audio can be a painful experience, and it is no wonder that online dealers are taking over.
Second, the science of audio discrimination is so limited, reviewers are just not reliable as guides to purchasing when they won't even subject themselves to calibration tests. More anon.

New Audio Wiki set up

Check out the new PSAudio sponsored (created?) wiki --http://audiophilewiki.org/

Wyred4Sound

Yes, I've been quiet, real life and work got in the way, but I also have been busy breaking in the revised Wyred4Sound MC4 that I have in for review. Wyred changed a couple of modules when I reported I found the original version to be a little hard sounding with no air in the upper range. They also said the 300 hours break-in was crucial. So.....let me say, 300 hours of listening when you share a room with a family is no trivial deal. I'm at 230 hours now so the review period will commence soon but it means I've yet to re-install the now-back-in-one-piece VK500 or my newly Cullen-mod'd GCP200. All in due course.....June is looking a little more open and I'll post more as we go.

The BAT is Back (nearly)

Right channel returned yesterday -- here it is:
I've not installed it yet but it looks clean, smells almost new and am not clear on how many new parts it contains there's plenty of fresh solder there.

Affordable Audio - May Issue out now

Check out the May issue of affordable audio for my review of the PS Audio GCP 200. Just after I submitted, naturally, the gain cell in one channel went and I had to send it off to Cullen Circuits for repair. After some back and forth over warranty etc. I decided to take an upgrade option on new modified gain cells from Cullen. I am awaiting the return so I can check it out.

BAT VK500 redux

Well, I heard back to my last email, and BAT claim that my problem was a thorny one for which they cannot provide a simple solution. After changing out parts one by one, they ended up replacing them by the handful. The bill comes to $300 and I am told the channel is clean. The problem of course is that since I sent the amp to them the problem seemed to result from my PS audio preamp instead, so I wonder if BAT have replaced parts without need. But presumably, they checked first to make sure that the channel WAS making noise before replacing even the first part so I guess I have a new channel with no noise. That the unit has been out of my system now for more than 22 days means I have made a record, but as yet their site does not reflect this.

Am waiting for the channel to get back to me so I can reinstall it and check out the sound. In the interim, I'm grooving to the updated Wyred MC4 fed by my old McCormack TLC1, using both the passive and buffered outputs. Sounds pretty sweet but the Wyred needs a few hundred hours more to break-in.