Audiophilepure

https://www.stereophile.com/content/rockport-technologies-lynx-loudspeaker

For the Lynx, Rockport wanted a full-range speaker capable of handling wide dynamic swings without requiring an enormous cabinet. “Hands-down, the chief arbiter of a clean wave launch from a loudspeaker is enclosure shape,” Payor said. On a conventional flat baffle, sound traveling across the cabinet front reaches a sharp edge and diffracts. That edge behaves like a second source, interfering with the drivers’ direct output and producing comb filtering and phase irregularities that can make the speaker easier to identify as the source of the sound. Rockport counters this with broad chamfers and by varying the distances from each driver to the cabinet edges. Payor considers that control essential to convincing imaging: A speaker that fails to manage diffraction, he said, “never gets entirely out of the way sonically.”The Lynx’s 10″ woofer is derived from, though not identical to, the 10” drivers used in the Lyra. Its 4-ohm motor, suspension, cone, surround, and spider are optimized for low mass, low friction, and high sensitivity. The company says the woofer remains pistonic to about 1.8kHz, far above its 150Hz crossover point; by then, the crossover has reduced its output by more than 72dB. The Lynx uses a rear-firing port, which, when I listened, called no attention to itself. The single woofer reaches a claimed 23Hz, and in my room the bass had the scale and pressure of a much larger speaker without the chuffing or one-note bloom that sometimes betrays a ported design.

https://www.stereophile.com/content/quad-platina-integrated-amplifier

To get a better read on the Platina headphone amp’s ability to deliver current and voltage, I tried one more headphone: the 250 ohm Beyerdynamic DT 880 Pro. My 880 is dirty and worn because I’ve put a lot of hours on it. I’ve used it more than other headphones in my herd because it plays smooth, tonally neutral, and supremely well-sorted. You really could mix a record with these.With the Quad Platina, the Beyer transduced Lana Del Rey’s Born to Die the way her engineers probably heard it. It made their track-to-track production choices seem more obvious, wiser, and more effective than I had previously found them. But what I heard lacked sparkle and immediacy; it was a little soft on the edges.The Platina’s headphone amp responded poorly to challenging loads but gloriously to easy loads.

https://www.enjoythemusic.com/superioraudio/equipment/0626/Nagra_PREAMP_II_S_Review.htm

The system I used for this review was not a state-of-the-art, no-expense-spared setup like the systems in an active audio show display. But I’ve spent quite a bit of time fine-tuning my setup to achieve an accurate, musical sound that’s also revealing enough to expose this Nagra preamplifier’s true sonic characteristics.

The review system was in a dedicated, acoustically treated listening room, with two power lines devoted to it that ran directly to our home’s circuit box. Not only are there acoustic panels lining the front, rear, side walls, and the ceiling, but there are also shelves filled with LPs lining many of the listening room’s walls. The room was painted with Sherwin-Williams “Sky Fall” blue. Psychology Today claims that blue affects people cognitively and emotionally, reducing stress and lowering heart rates, among other benefits.

The custom version of the MEST Fortune is a weighty, fulsome tuning, with an even-harmonic, almost euphonic, timbre throughout.

Nothing about this tuning is shrill, bright, or lean-sounding. It’s effortlessly smooth throughout with a saturated coloration that is very unlikely to ‘breakup’ with sibilant or brighter recordings.

Everything up to 1-2k is north of neutral, so it carries a good deal of warmth and power. Instruments deliver a pleasing fundamental frequency that will delight thrash metal, modern pop, and R’n’B rhythm section fans.

Vocals and percussion are more neutral in their imaging. It’s not as forward-sounding as the MEST Jet Black in the mids, nor does it have the same levels of note contrast as the Maven II Crescent or the older Maven Pro.

Instead, it generates a subjective feeling of relaxation. This is more of an easy-going sound with a slightly looser ‘phatter’ bass delivery. Combined with a treble lift shifted more to the upper than lower FR, it creates a gentle sheen on notes rather than a drier, hard-hitting impact.

https://www.soundstageultra.com/index.php/equipment-menu/1319-spec-rsa-ex1000-integrated-amplifier

Just now I mixed things up. I described bass guitar in the same paragraph as sizzling electric guitar. I don’t usually do that. Instead, my standard manner of describing a component splits everything up—how it handles bass, midrange, and treble, then imaging, then dynamics. Maybe I’ll play a bit with the sequence, but we’re not animals; we live in a society and need order. The RSA‑EX1000 made it difficult to focus on these properties in a linear manner. Each album I played exhibited facets, characteristic qualities, that pulled me in all sorts of different directions. A case in point: I hadn’t listened to Duke Ellington’s Ellington Indigos (LP, Columbia CS 8053 / Impex IMP6010) for a year or so, but the Spec seemed to guide me to the “E” cube of my record rack. Ellington Indigos is brilliant music, all about the space between the notes, the dynamic shadings, the creation of an introspective mood. The RSA‑EX1000 blew open the front of my room, expanding it into a massive, reverberant hall.

While playing “Prelude to a Kiss,” the RSA‑EX1000 exhibited some contradictory yet complementary attributes. The upper midrange, specifically Johnny Hodges’s sax, was incisive and crisp—as it should be—but at the same time, I was intimately aware of the spit, the granular nature of his syrupy tone. The inner light, that sense of an actual reed vibrating, of air reverberating through brass, was palpable. Same with Shorty Baker’s trumpet on “Willow Weep for Me,” which possessed extended highs with harmonics that could pierce the clouds, but at the same time retained an almost pillow-like feeling of ease. At times I’d wonder to myself if there wasn’t just a tiny bit too much emphasis on the top end of Baker’s upper registers, but then I’d find myself sinking back into the experience. Why? Because that emphasis easily dissolved into an effervescent liquidity, kinda like how expensive champagne (which I don’t think is worth the money, but still) aerosolizes off the tongue.