Gary Moore, guitarist, dies

To say I am saddened by this news would be an understatement but the BBC is reporting this morning that Gary Moore died last night in Spain. No cause of death has been mentioned and the official Moore website is down as I write. Hard to make too much of an audiophile case here but Moore was a really great guitarist even if he tended to overplay some of those blues (though unlike others, he never blanded out in the name of commerce). Seems he's been around all my life, from a wonderkid player in Thin Lizzy to a jazz rocker with Colliseum II,  then later a hard rock and blues player on his own and with others. Ozzy Osbourne famously described him as having 'a face like a welder's bench' but the man could play, and did play with some of the greats (Lynott, Bruce and Baker, Albert Collins, Peter Green etc). George Harrison remarked that Gary's playing made him feel 'like a skiffler' in comparison. Cue up Blues for Greeny and hear some of his tastier licks.  He was only 58. 

Bryston BDA-1 is the real deal

From not listening to a DAC for a decade I find myself spoilt with two in succession. I've been reviewing the Bryston BDA-1 DAC in my system, likely to appear in the March edition of HiFi'Zine. It's impressive and easily beats the EE MiniMax, as it should at almost three times the price. Most importantly, it breathes such life into redbook CDs that it makes SACD obsolete. The EE MiniMax remains a great product, and the one to beat for $750 but the Bryston takes the sound to another level, and partnered with almost any decent player, it produces truly great sound. Before buying a new digital front end in the $2k range, try adding the BDA-1 to your existing rig and give yourself connection options and software upgradeability. 

Tom Fletcher of Nottingham Audio passes almost unnoticed

Just learned this morning the sad news that the man who gave us the Space deck tables and arms, not to mention the Anna Log, and the no-switch motor, passed away last year. Long-term Nottingham dealer, Brian Kurtz of Austin's Sound Mind Audio sent the following note, so well worded that I reproduce it here:

"I just got word that Tom Fletcher, founder of Nottingham Analogue, has passed on.  Tom had backed away from Nottingham Analogue several years ago when cancer had him down; selling the company to a worthy group of individuals who agreed to maintain the company at the highest level of quality (which they have, of course, done) regardless of his condition.  

Tom’s health had improved and he had, at one point, wanted to regain control of the company, but the group to which he’d handed the reins thought it best to keep things as they were, and Tom left to start a new company, Fletcher Audio.  He and I actually spoke a few months back and he was brimming with hope for what was to come.  He was quite enthusiastic about a new turntable and tonearm lineup he was planning, and was hoping to bring them to market sometime in the future after current prototypes were completed.

At 16, Tom was machining turntable parts, and before the age of 20, had a crew of a dozen folks or more, building Nottingham Analogue turntables.  50,000 turntables and 40-plus years later, Nottingham Analogue still makes the best turntables for the money I’ve ever heard. Tom’s gone, but his legacy spins forever, with no power switch J (Tom’s tables are known for their ultra-low-torque motors that require no power switch)."

Thanks Brian, for the words. More can be found at Fletcher Audio's tribute page.

PS Audio release new power plants

As a satisfied owner of the the PPP power regenerator from PS Audio, I am intrigued by the release of their new Power Plant 5 and 10 models ($3000 and $4500 respectively). The current PPP is being sold off now for around $1200, which is a bargain for its benefits (clean, new power that hits the 60hz cycle directly and repeatedly for all your gear), both sonic and practical. The PPP has improved every component which I've connected to it, with the only exception (if so it may be termed) being the power hungry BAT Vk500 which caused the fans on the PPP to kick in audibly. That it also offers power surge protection is a bonus. I've had a lot of PS Audio gear in my rig over the years but it's their power regeneration product that has produced the best bang for the buck. Am looking forward to hearing this, a review sample is promised.

I need to move to Greece

I love the people in this video  and would love to spend time in their space. Admit it,  you know, you would love it too!!!!

Year end audio fashion

Easy copy is provided at this time of year for the best-of lists but I find the presence of such product listings in audio mags to be largely a waste of space, a poor substitute for more substantive content. I concede to the request in AA for my own which I keep brief but really, audio development and product releases are not as cyclical as films, books, and other 'events' in the media. A recent discussion on A'gon about products that came and went, initially with a flurry of positive reviews, reminded me of how one year's best can be quickly forgotten when new products come along, reducing the whole audio product cycle to the level of more transient realm of quick-turnover consumables.

It's not difficult to see what are the current darlings of the audio press, especially in speaker design, so I was reminded of how a couple of years ago in TAS you could hardly open a page without positive images or comments on the Kharma speakers, but where did all that attention go? You can pick up a pair easily on A'gon at about one-third of list now. Got an eye on some Magicos? Wait a couple of years and save yourself a fortune. Always longed for that Esoteric front end the mags all loved? You can have one now for a fraction of the original price. In short, take all such best-of and hyped up reviews with a pinch of salt. As I reminded myself recently in reviewing the Eastern Electric DAC, a 15 year old CD player can still sound very respectable partnered with the right gear, and yet digital audio is one area where very real progress is being made. Imagine the bargains to be had now in used tables, amps and the rest. A more interesting best-of would be a listing for a great system sourced from the used market. Try this from today's audiogon:

Basis Debut Gold, with Audio Research PH3 SE phono stage,
a Sony XA5400ES CD player, an MBL 601D preamp, a BAT VK600, with a pair of Wilson Wp7s, and you'll come in comfortably under $30k for a set up that listed closer to $100k when the rave reviews came out not so long ago. Now that's a best-of I could live with for more than a season.  Happy New Year!

Great Micheal Fremer video at the Audio Beat

Don't ask me how I missed this before but Paul Bolin and colleagues have produced a great new audio web site called the Audio Beat. Nice look and feel, and even nicer material. I really enjoyed this  video interview with Micheal Fremer where he discusses the state of audio reproduction and the value of turntables. Think I have to pick up a copy of his set up DVD after this. He's far saner sounding on video than I imagined from reading his columns :)

HiFi Zine issue 3 now out

The Dec 2010 issue of HiFi'Zine is out today and contains part two of my interiew with the ever-engaging Albert von Schweikert in which he discusses both the history of his designs and some exciting new plans for speaker technology. One of the goals of the mag is to offer an alternative to the limited space/ad-driven layout of paper publications and with this interview we take advantage of the lack of space restriction to let Albert speak at length. He does not disappoint.

The new issue coincides with the announcement in this month's Affordable Audio that it will be incorporated under the broader HiFi'Zine banner next year. AA will continue to organize and deliver reviews of equipment with the same writers, but it will no longer continue as a monthly 'magazine', as it has done for the last five years, with remarkable consistency. I've been associated with AA for almost three of those years and am happy to remain part of its new future under the HiFi'Zine project. As I need to remind people often, these projects are run by volunteers - none of us gets paid to write this stuff (park your sarcasm right there brother!) and to me it's a wonder of the new world of media that a dedicated group of fanatics can collectively publish articles and reviews that others seem to enjoy and which seem to draw the ire so frequently of the journalistic 'professionals' (a term I used to think implied something more than just being paid but I digress...). Anyhow, HiFiZine is the home for our efforts and we welcome new contributors.

Stylus gauge blues part 2

Well, my jousting with Music Direct resulted in a second purchased stylus gauge arriving (though no reimbursement of the original cost as yet but it's promised), this one, I am told, was checked before sending. Yes, it arrived and it works, calibrating spot-on 5g, despite reports elsewhere that this was a problem with others. Thank you Rocco at MD (where my complaining emails ended up) for stepping up.

Quick check of my set-by-ear-VTF revealed me within the 1.6-1.9g range recommended by Benz for my cartridge, leaning slightly to the light side. The drop counterweight on my JMW 10 only takes a little adjustment to increase force measurably but I decided to go the whole hog and reset everything, with pleasing results, but am still tweaking VTA within a small range.

The Audio Additives gauge has a peculiarity in that it registers slight positive weight (in the 100ths range) when my cartridge sits over but not touching the tray, presumably due to magnetic influence and the ever helpful Rocco  suggested taking the batteries out of the gauge and resintalling which I'll try, as well as running the demag function on my PPP to see if this changes anything. Not too worried, I take the 'precision' of these gauges with a pinch of salt, I just want to get to the nearest 10th and then be able to trust my ears from there. It does seem necessary with the JMW, and probably every arm, to measure at several points across the arc travelled by the stylus since VTF varies and one could become obsessive over these numbers ('could' being an understatement with vinyl afficianados). All told, I'll stick with this gauge but I can't say it inspires much confidence or pride of ownership. It's about good enough for me but one thinks there has to be a market there for something a bit better but not so costly as The Cartridge Man, but maybe not. I just wished companies would fess up that these are generic gauges, no matter what name is on the outside and I really doubt that the dealer on A'gon who claims to have these specially made to his standards is sourcing anything different than this product.

Of course, once you get into vinyl and want to set things up yourself (which sooner or later you will have to given the dealership network for tables), you will find you can spend a small fortune on tools related to setting up the basic gear: a gauge ($80), a cartridge alignment tool ($80-250), a test record ($30), an azimuth checker ($250), etc......and all this before you play a tune! There's a story waiting to be written here and I'm on it....

Stylus gauge blues

Well, as I mentioned that I'd given up the ghost on my drained Cartridge Man gauge when I learned I'd have to pay serious dollars north of a hundred just to have the battery replaced and the machine recalibrated back in the UK, but my search for a cheaper and easier alternative has not been without hiccups. I first chose a Jennings CD stylus gauge which is cheap and semi-reliable. I say 'semi' deliberately. It measures consistently in its center spot but since the scale is formed in the size of a cd in a case, it produces variable measurements depending on where on that surface you place your stylus, which worried me endlessly, not least because it seemed to be inconsistent only with a stylus, not with a fixed calibration weight. Add to this, it's physical thickness makes measuring the tracking force at the height of the LP surface is near impossible.

Next up, I tried an Audio Additives gauge from Music Direct at $79, despite the suggestion in this online review that most such gauges are rebranded versions of a cheap Chinese sourced scale that was never designed to measure tracking force of cartridges. Well, fired up to dial in my rig after some shuffling and moving, imagine my disappointment on Saturday, a day I'd set aside for indulging in vinyl pleasures, when the damn scale would not even calibrate properly, returning only 'fail' or blinking blankly at me when I tried to set it up. A fiery email to Music Direct resulted only in a "Sorry, let us know if you want to return it or get a replacement, we're now closed, back Monday" message. Arg.....As I told them, that was the wrong answer! The right response should have been: "Sorry, we're shipping a replacement today, and issuing you a return code to ship back the faulty one" so I would at least have known one was coming. By monday they told me they would send another one (after I complained) but would have to charge me for it, promising to reimburse me for the original faulty one once I'd returned it and they'd determined it was actually faulty. From there, I'd see my account credited 2-3 business days later.....sheesh, it's all in the mail as I write but it makes me wonder if I really should have taken Bill Feil's advice a couple of months back and just paid up to have my Cartridge Man sent back to the UK...I'd be sitting prettier now, that's for sure.

I think I am definitely going to get a cheap Shure or Clearaudio analog scale as back up after struggling to set VTF by ear and struggling for hours to get things near where they should be. Am confident the cheap and approximately accurate manual scales would get me closer quicker 99 times out of 100.

Eastern Electric MiniMax DAC packs a punch

I've had the EE MiniMax Dac in my rig for the last couple of months and it's been a real treat. The review will be in the December issue of Affordable Audio but it's fair to say that at the price, you can attach it to a cheap old CD player, your computer and anything else with a digital out and achieve very impressive sonic results. With a tube circuit that can be placed in or out of the listening path, this is a true audio plaything that is just a lot of fun to use. Is it the best DAC in the world, as some have suggested given it's use of the Sabre 32-bit chip? I don't make that claim but now I have the Bryston DAC1 in for review next, I'll be able to say more in due course. The real point here is, you can get really great digital sound now at a price that does not require you to drop thousands of dollars on an esoteric piece of kit that is built like a tank. So it really did take this long for redbook to come of age....

Remastering the masters

Just took possession of the 35th anniversary remaster of Deep Purple's Come Taste the Band. Eminating from the efforts of Simon Robinson who runs the band's appreciation society, this finally catches up the remastering of Purple's original back catalog....and what a long road. It took 25 years to get the ball rolling with the uniformly excellent 25th anniversary remastering projects on the original releases but time slipped, tapes were proving hard to source and general other hold ups meant that it was another 10 years before we got to this one.

Worth the wait? I think so. This is a double CD package, rather like the splendid anniversary job on Machine Head, with a second CD of remixes which give the old tunes a little different twist. I've always loved the album since I grew up listening to the strange mix of hard rock, jazz and funk, but let's be honest. The original vinyl sounded muffled, with Coverdale appearing to be singing in another room while the band overloaded every channel trying to be heard. The music demanded a sense of space but it was missing in action. I've tried various remastered CD releases but none sounded as good as this one. Oddly, I am finding the 2010 Kevin Shirley remixes to be a real ear opener, new lines from Tommy Bolin appearing where before there was a cut or fade; Coverdale actually sounding like he's in front of the band; and You Keep on Moving placed where it was intended, on the 'opener' to side 2, though of course on CD, this just means it's moved up the listing a little, with a riotous Drifter closing the album out. Yes, as with all original Purple releases, the band write and record in a hurry (2 albums a year being standard back then) and I wonder how this all sounds to someone who never heard the music before, but I suspect it's more than a trip down memory lane. More's the pity this line up never lasted and a greater pity we lost the wonderful Tommy Bolin before he could really shine - now that was a talent lost. Anyhow, this is not audiophile music, it's just toe-tapping, body shaking good time music by a band that confused more people than ever got it. Tasty.

It's too easy to be uneasy

OK, I wrote a little article for HiFi'Zine entitled "The Unease of the Audiophile" as a gentle send-up of the stereotypical audiophile, at least as one might imagine him (and it's always 'him') from typical forum discussions and debates on line. While most people recognize the humor and have the grace to accept the parody, I do fear for the world when others start taking issue with it or picking out points which they deem unfair. Some of the discussions about the article are the best evidence you can get that audiophiles sometimes miss the point.

So there can be no misunderstanding here -- I see myself in all those points, from religiously checking A'gon prices on old gear to imagining how my room might sound with audiophile, steam cleaned wires and LPs, but the article was lighthearted, and not intended to insult anyone even remotely interested in music and the audio arts. Thank you! Now, can you believe how much that vintage Mac gear is going for nowadays??

RMAF -- what I heard

RMAF was great, really great fun, but overwhelming. It's wonderful to wander from room to room hearing the gear you cannot otherwise experience in your own locale but it is also a trial. There is not enough time to hear every room, and frankly, if you don't know the Marriott, the layout is bewildering and it's easy to miss the stuff you really hope to find unless you plan with the precision of a military campaign. I went with a couple of goals in mind: one specific aim, to really hear the PS Audio Perfect Wave transport and Dac set-up; and a second more general one, to learn what some of the really 'great' (read expensive) speakers and tables might sound like.

I arrived on Friday and headed straight to the Von Schweikert rooms to learn what the new VR33 and VR35 Deluxe could do, and therein lies the problem. The VR33 is good and sounded it, either in the VSA room or the Jolida room, and at the asking price of $3750 it is a very attractive deal. However, if you will add $4k to that basic design you can get the significantly upgraded VR35 which really is excellent, and partnered with a truly spectacular looking KR integrated amp ($16k) with two tubes the size of two-liter wine bottles and Tentation CD player ($12k) in a highly inverted cost-basis system in the Musical Reality room, I heard music here that made much of what I subsequently experienced sound comparatively flat. i went back a couple of times to be sure, and I ended up certain that this was a really great speaker.

I wandered around a few more rooms that first day and set out Saturday morning to hear as much as I could. I trawled the rooms the second day for 8 hours without even stopping for coffee, which frankly is not hard to do with so much on display. In terms of my first aim, I did get to hear the PS Audio combo in two rooms: the excellent Veloce room where battery powered amps ($14000 a pair of monos fed the lowest priced YG Audio Carmel speakers ($18,000) along with a great sounding Amazon table, which one can find used for about $5k. On LP or digital, this room sounded very good and I could not draw too much from this about the Perfectwave combo, other than the rep for Veloce said it was a definite contributor to the room's good music.

I then targeted the PS Audio room directly, hoping to learn more, but this was a major disappointment. The PW combo fed a prototype PS Audio power amp directly (no preamp) and a pair of large Genesis speakers (I think an unmarketed prototype from a few years back) in a relatively simple set up. Sadly, the insistent chatter of the PS Audio reps with a loud-mouthed attendee and the awful selection of music while I was in the sweet-spot alone (Journey) meant I left totally underwhelmed. I understand music choice is personal but when the reps are more interested in standing to the side and engaging in full voiced chatter with another attendee, (and I include, most depressingly, VTL and Wilson's room in this complaint) it's hard to understand why they were even showing. Maybe I just timed it badly or you have to be on the insider track to get the 'private' session but given my aim, this was a lousy experience.

This was a widespread problem at the event. So many people at RMAF, presumably audiophiles, thought nothing of holding conversations at near shout levels, often about nothing to do with the gear and everything to do with their 'expertise'. Room organizers tended to up the volume to compensate with the result that music tended to force itself at you, rather than inviting you to listen. Add this to the natively hostile environment of limited square-footage hotel rooms and I left too many demos where the overloaded bass and in-your-face volume wondering why anyone would want to showcase their products in this manner.

Darlings of many, the Magico speakers, sounded very coherent but hardly in another league from many others, as you might imagine from most of the media coverage. Yes, they sounded good, and yes, I'd like them at home, but at nearly $60k it should sound like the singer is in your room -- it didn't. The Zu Soul Superfly at $2600 offered a lot of quality for a fraction of that price, though the bass was overloading when I listened. For ridiculous sums of money, the Kaiser room was really making music while I was there; understated but with a fidelity to instrumental timbre that was supremely engaging, but the total set up topped $200k before I stopped counting the price. Their Kawaro speakers ($66k) sound like they want to seduce you by any means other than flash.....they succeeded with me, and looked good too.

So, if the rooms are not well proportioned for audio, what can one do? Well, one might imagine that a dealer or manufacturer would appreciate this when planning an exhibit; too few did. There were exceptions. TweekGeek of Denver seemed to know what they were doing. They showed the Vivid Audio $7500 speaker on a stand which had a wonderful, full-range sound that belied the tiny size. With Modwright amps (which seemed to be everywhere), this room sounded great and I felt that for people with less than $10k to spend on speakers, these with the the VSA VR35s are offering some serious musical reproduction that is hard to beat. Most importantly, these kinds of products give you a palate cleansing calibration that will make you think again about where to put your hard earned cash. Congrats TweekGeek -- this was a special room.

I'd heard a lot about the quality of Van Alstine products but I confess the room I heard these amps in with Salk speakers sounded disappointing to me, flat and generally lifeless. Not sure the fault here but with too many other rooms to hear I did not stick around to find out. I did hear Salk's new Soundscape 12 in the Iris room, powered by Parsasound JC1 monos to much better effect. These look big and sound big but in the large, treated room used for their demo, this speaker worked quite well to my ears but I could not quite shake the feeling that this was not the best sound the speakers could provide. Was it a case of trying to make the case with too much volume? This was not an isolated problem. I was very disappointed in an ARC-fed Vandersteen 7 -- big room, loud sound but sadly nothing special in the results that reached my ears for the prices involved (was that another $100k+ room) , though the use of the classic Linn Lp12 to deliver vinyl to these was a nice reminder of that vintage table's qualities, which I've often doubted since playing with a friend's version years ago. Sometimes refining over time on a basic model really does yield results.

At the other end of the cost spectrum, Harbeth's tiny P3 bookshelf speakers sounded so good in their room that one had to really stop and listen. If you want truth the sound, I thought these had it in a way that even the more spacious and bass-rich Harbeth 5s could not replicate. This was high class sound of real fidelity. And did I mention 'proportion'? I'd say the same about the Gallo room where I heard the ref 3 with a Spectron amp -- small looks, well structured sound. Apparently a new model was also on the go here but I missed it. I did get to speak with John Ulrick of Spectron though who was a really pleasant person (and why not, I suppose?)

Also very good, Bryston ran a very musical set up consisting of their own BCD-1 player, their transport and Dac1, BP26/MPS2 Preamp and mono power amps, with PMC IB2 speakers (I think). I sat next to James Tanner as he controlled the music with an iPhone and Ipad, playing various selections in quick succession. The music was in proportion, sounded pleasing and just somehow right, another reminder that power has its place, and quality is not the same as cost.

There were Wilson Sashas and Sophia 3s in several rooms. To my ears, the Sophia 3, particularly when partnered with Rega's new top of the range Osiris integrated ($9k) and Isis Valve CD player ($10k), were better suited to their environment than the Sashas, which confirms again the need to consider the room when choosing audio gear. I 'know' intellectually that the Sasha is 'better' but that matters little if your home is not of a scale to do the physics of the speaker appropriate justice.

Sadly, no Thiel's could be found, meaning my desire to hear the 3.7s had to be postponed again. I did however get to sit for a while in front of a pair of Quad 2805s in their room, which was pleasant, though not the epiphany I hoped for given their legendary status. What was closer to epiphany was my experience with a pair of the German Physik omnidirectionals. These look ordinary but they spread a soundstage out in all directions, especially front to back that makes live music sound really present. Soundstaging is a bug of mine - we love it in our speakers but don't easily find it in the pinpoint way of audio in real live music, despite the myths, and these speakers seem to capture that odd nature of this quality really well. They also sounded light and airy in a most captivating manner. I doubt I'll ever own any at the price (in the $30k range) but they have a truly original voice.

I had great fun listening to a Townsend Rock 7 turntable with EAR gear on a dedicated Townsend rack, with Marten's new Getz speakers ($20k). Dan, the EAR rep explained a little about the table and frankly, at the starting price of around 3k without an arm, one can enter the world of hi-end tables with this design, though the show table came loaded up at around $11k once the arm Helius Omega ($3k) and Dynavector SV-1s cartridge were included. Lots of music to be had here and your toes will tap.

The Sota demo included Tweek Studio's rep rapping the Sapphire table ($2700) crisply while an LP spun with no deleterious effect to anything except his poor knuckles. His aim, which I think he reached, was to show that the tweaks they add to the table's isolation are effective. That got everyone's attention in the room, I can tell you. This room also had the Genesis 7.1f speakers ($8k) which did little for me though they looked quite nice.

What looked better than their photos suggest were the Revel Ulltima Salon2, and they sounded great from the mid=bass up, offering a kind of floating-free-of-the-enclosure sonic picture that you read about but seldom hear. When I first listened I was genuinely taken aback by the sonics -- here was something truly different. The bass, however, was too much for that small room, a conclusion I confirmed by coming back later to determine if I really had heard what I thought that morning. Yes, these speakers are really good, but in that room they were too much and I'd have loved to hear how the Studio2's worked there.

I was repeatedly disappointed in several rooms with the Avalon line up -- they sounded pretty dead no matter where I listened though one well known reviewer who ended up at my bar table on Sat night told us all that the Avalons are clearly the best sounding speakers out there. So, people disagree. I'd hoped the reviews were true, but on this evidence, I'd never own a pair. I had wanted to get to the Legacy room but could not locate it in a hurry. I did however stumble on the Studio Electric monitors fed by a Benchmark DAC/pre and large power amp which, for their price (under $2300) offered impressive sound and in the scheme of things, true value. Nice room -- no hard sell, wine and cheese too!

So, what to conclude? First, it's a blast. RMAF has the feel of a fanatic's gathering and it permeates everything about the venue, from the rooms to the bar. Second, there is so much stuff to hear that you really cannot aspire to completion. Third, the rooms often suck sonically and some exhibitors seem to care little about this. As a result, some great gear probably does not sound so good at the show. Make allowances but recognize your home probably sucks too, so the importance of room context is not to be understated and serves as a great leveler in the world of hi-end audio. Getting your room right first is better than dropping tons on new gear, and the differences between decent and superb gear cannot be measured simply in dollar terms.

Finally -- get there sometime -- the only way to experience this show is to experience the show. I'll be there next year and the organizers really should be thanked profusely for their efforts.

RMAF 2010 up next

I'll be heading to Denver for the RMAF audio show this weekend which is a first for me. I hope to hear a oouple of products that have eluded me thus far, not least the PS Audio Perfect Wave combo, some Salk speakers, the new VSA 33, and who knows what else I might find. I'll try to update the blog as I go but I think time will be tight there. The Von Schweikert owners forum members are planning a dinner event which we hope will include Albert and son, and I generally want to meet in person some of the many online colleagues who I've come to at least partially know through this great hobby over the years. Stay tuned.