GrooveMaster 3 Tonearm $2598 Review
June 19, 2024 Comments Off on GrooveMaster 3 Tonearm $2598 Review
The Audio Creative GrooveMaster 3 tonearm came with a well-earned reputation for excellence for the money, and it left no doubt that inserting it in place of my stock tonearm was an excellent upgrade. Like switching from a bulky mountain bike to a svelte racing bicycle for a street rally—or loudspeakers using a pair of fast eight-inch drivers instead of a single 15″ woofer—the GrooveMaster was fleeter and more nimble, making a noticeable improvement in responsiveness, sensitivity, and detail. It’s a beautiful instrument, a versatile, universal tonearm suited for a wide variety of turntables, and one that I can’t see myself parting with anytime soon. I highly recommend it.
PureAudio open-baffle loudspeaker system $21,000 Review
June 18, 2024 Comments Off on PureAudio open-baffle loudspeaker system $21,000 Review
Assembly of the crossover board is customer’s responsibility, but no soldering is involved. There are two circuit boards to be assembled, one for the left channel and the other for the right. The first board took me well over two hours to complete amidst the trial and error learning curve, so that the second board was finished in less than an hour. For the review sample, I was sent the higher-grade, resin-soaked Mundorf VS140 inductor, plus two ClarityCap 3% tolerance CSA 250V 82 micro farad capacitors as an alternative or upgrade to the original Mundorf audiophile-grade components. The drivers are mounted on open ¾” baffles and not inside an enclosure, and the crossover is secured at the bottom of the speaker.
Manufacturers have put drivers in enclosures to boost and control bass output, and manufacturers go to extraordinary extent in scaling that goal. The fact of the matter is that the bulk of the costs of building a floorstanding, full-range loudspeaker system often lies in the construction of the enclosure cabinet. Consequently, a good number of speakers are adorned with such costly and exotic enclosures as to be their primary selling point, in turn cultivating clientele of discerning taste and spending ability on the physicality of the speakers.
Parasound JCA100 Tribute monoblock power amplifier $30,000 Review
June 18, 2024 Comments Off on Parasound JCA100 Tribute monoblock power amplifier $30,000 Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/parasound-jca100-tribute-monoblock-power-amplifier
Darren Myers, Parasound’s new Vice President of Research and Development, explained that “the goal of this design was to create an amplifier capable of 100W of class-A operation into 8 ohms. To accomplish this, the voltage rails on the output stage were lowered, reducing the maximum voltage swing into 8 ohms compared to a stock JC 1+. This allows for a manageable amount of power dissipation on the output stage while having adequate quiescent current to achieve the 100W class-A power specification.
“To optimize this class-A operation, there are several internal modifications applied to the circuit, including transformer and component value changes. John Curl worked directly with the Parasound design team for over a year to design and optimize the modification process. John and the entire team at Parasound are so proud of what we’ve come up with. The outcome is truly something very special.”
Balanced Audio Technology REX 500 power amplifier $25,000 Review
June 15, 2024 Comments Off on Balanced Audio Technology REX 500 power amplifier $25,000 Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/balanced-audio-technology-rex-500-power-amplifier
I decided to evaluate the amp in three ways. First, I went without a preamp, using the volume control of my main source, an Aurender A20 digital transport and server. Then I listened to the REX with the Aurender connected via the line stage of my Benchmark HPA4. Finally, I pressed the VK-90 into service, again using the A20 as a source.
While I did indeed prefer the sound with the BAT preamp in the chain by a small margin, I spent the least amount of time with that combination because I wanted to home in on the sonics of the REX without the wild card the VK-90 presented.
BAT co-founder Steve Bednarski told me he’s keen on listening with a preamp in the system. I asked him why: What’s the downside to feeding a power amp the output stage of a DAC or other digital source? “A well-designed active line stage will provide greater current delivery from its output stage than almost any source omponent,” Bednarski emailed back. “Current delivery gives a sense of liveliness and joie de vivre to the reproduction of music. For instance, a CD player that uses an op-amp–based output stage will provide weak current delivery. When such an output stage is connected directly to an amplifier, the music can sound flat and uninvolving.”
Amphion Argon7LS Loudspeaker $7000 Review
June 15, 2024 Comments Off on Amphion Argon7LS Loudspeaker $7000 Review
https://www.soundstagehifi.com/index.php/equipment-reviews/1862-amphion-argon7ls-loudspeaker
Unsurprisingly, given the difference in size and driver complement between the two models, the Argon7LS floorstanders could play far louder and far deeper than the MG-10 minimonitors. When the Esoteric speakers were asked to play loudly, they didn’t misbehave in any egregious way, but they did compress the signal and, more problematically, shifted the frequency balance toward the treble. The Amphions simply got louder.
The MG-10 has average bass depth for a speaker of its size, but I’ve always been impressed with the cleanliness and articulation of that bass. When driven by the NAD, however, the Amphions matched the Esoterics in bass articulation and thoroughly trounced them in both depth and impact. Bass performance was closer when driven by the Graaf, with the Argon7LS speakers still leading on depth and impact, but slightly trailing the MG-10s on articulation. When driving the speakers with either amplifier, however, the MG-10s rendered Christian McBride’s bass on “Armando’s Rhumba” with a little more tonal specificity. Both speaker models energize the same bass modes in my room—that’s just physics—but the significantly greater bass capabilities of the Amphions meant they benefited more from equalization; the Esoterics simply can’t overload a room with bass.
1969 Chevy Nova – Custom Interior with Audiophile Stereo EXPLAINED!
June 15, 2024 Comments Off on 1969 Chevy Nova – Custom Interior with Audiophile Stereo EXPLAINED!
Astell&Kern A&norma SR35 $650
June 14, 2024 Comments Off on Astell&Kern A&norma SR35 $650
No matter what music you feed it, we found the SR35 handles it with top-notch dynamic expression and more detail than we’ve heard on any other player at its original price point. Even better, now it’s £200 less. Plus it’s a source we think that almost any headphones will get on with, so there’s no pairing worries to consider either.
If you’re looking to buy a portable music player and have this budget to spend, you simply won’t find better than the A&norma SR35. But be quick, it’ll only be available at this price while stocks last!
Audiovector R 3 Arreté loudspeaker Review
June 14, 2024 Comments Off on Audiovector R 3 Arreté loudspeaker Review
https://www.stereophile.com/content/audiovector-r-3-arret%C3%A9-loudspeaker
Despite the similarities, the R 8 and R 3 Arretés are very different speakers. Start with the fact that the R 8 Arreté is much larger, has several additional drivers, and weighs three times as much. The R 8 is a complex speaker, which, as I wrote in my review, “sends energy out into the air via no fewer than nine sound-radiating openings, only four of them—the three midwoofers and the tweeter—firing forward. The others are the down-firing woofer (which radiates through those base slots to the back and sides), the rear-firing midrange driver (diffracted through those five horizontal grooves), the vent that allows the tweeter’s back wave to emerge from the rear, and the two aforementioned ports.” That’s a lot for a designer to integrate, though with the R 8, Ole did a superb job: As I wrote in the review, “what I heard from the R 8s was anything but complicated: It was pure and coherent and easily grasped.”
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