ANALOG vs DIGITAL - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Gossip&News Feedback New Home for Jadis Not that Jadis is exactly new. The French maker of upscale tube gear (the name is French for “yesteryear,” no doubt inspired by its tube technology) has been around for decades. For a number of years, North American distribution had been in the hands of the Montreal-area company Pierre Gabriel, also known for its eponymous loudspeakers hardly anyone bought. Oh, and upscale silver cables. We liked the cables enough that we still use some in our reference systems, and some of our readers have them too, because we used to list them in our Audiophile Store. We dropped them because a newer incarnation of the cables was markedly inferior. A promised upgrade never turned up. In recent years Pierre Gabriel was mainly known for distributing Jadis. Well, what can we tell you? The Pierre Gabriel Web page now contains only the company logo and an e-mail link — but don’t stand on one leg waiting for a reply. We talked recently to company founder Pierre Raymond (full name: Pierre Gabriel Raymond), who has plans for the future, but not with the business he set up. But that left Jadis an orphan in North America. Inevitably, then, the French company has found a new home, Bluebird Music, which also distributes 78 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY <strong>Magazine</strong> Gossip&News Industry News Chord, Spendor and Van den Hul. The amplifier shown above, by the way, is the DA30. It was reviewed in UHF No. 66. Bad season for TV makers Just the other day we were recalling the first plasma TV set to appear at Costco. It was offered at a bargain price…$14,000! No wonder the leading edge of technology is often referred to as the bleeding edge. Today, the cheapest plasmas are in the same store for $700. So how do you make money making and marketing a product that is plummeting toward the bottom? Apparently you don’t. You’ll recall that, several years ago now, Pioneer killed off its muchrespected Kuro line of plasma HDTVs. Those were generally considered to be the best available, and Pioneer had never joined the wave of commodification that were bringing prices ever lower. A Kuro HDTV would still have cost $5000 when a competitor from Panasonic or Samsung might have cost $2500 (and today less than half of that). Oddly enough, there was a brief hope that the Kuros were coming back, as new Elite TV’s were announced. But the ads didn’t say Kuro, and they didn’t say Pioneer either. They are actually made by Sharp, and they are LCD, not plasma. What they have kept from the Kuro days are the prices, ranging from $6000 to $8000. We wish them luck, but in the meantime let’s see what’s happening to other TV makers. Sony, which never did recover from its failure to find a successor to its Trinitron technology, has had seven consecutive annual losses in its TV-manufacturing arm. It has now reorganized itself into three groups. One group will oversee the LCD operations (Sony has never made plasmas — a missed opportunity in our view), another will coordinate contract manufacturing, and a third will oversee the development of next-generation sets. We’re not sure we understand the strategy of setting up these divisions like silos. Chrysler was once organized that way (engineering, styling, marketing) and it nearly died as a result. Sony’s most troublesome competitors seem to be Samsung and Vizio. Even LG, the other Korean maker, has seen its sales drop. As for Panasonic, whose TV sets are well regarded, it’s projecting a net loss for the year of $5.5 billion. Back in April, Panasonic announced a cutback of its global workforce from 367,000 to 350,000. Panasonic has also revealed that it will discontinue LCD production at its Mobara plant, which is near Tokyo. It also plans to stop shipping plasma-panel manufacturing equipment to Shanghai. Amagasaki No. 3, the largest plasma panel factory in the world with production capacity of 330,000 panels per month, was completed in December 2009. Finally, Panasonic may sell off an LCD panel plant at Mobara in Chiba prefecture, near Tokyo. And Sharp is not doing well in the TV business either. Will making “Elite” sets help?
Apple to the rescue? With the TV business in the doldrums despite the supposed allure of 3D, is there room for another large company? No? Even if its name is Apple? There is a product called “Apple TV,” but as you possibly know it’s not a TV set but a small box that connects to your TV set and can stream content from your computer, your iPad, iPhone or iTunes. There have long been rumors that Apple would get into the TV business, but we couldn’t see why it would want to do that. What relaunched the rumor was that Steve Jobs, according to his biographer, did talk about a TV with “the simplest interface you can imagine.” He told Walter Isaacson that “I finally cracked it.” No details. Did you expect any? But the rumor mill has lots of them. The iPhone 4S includes “Siri,” an intelligent agent connected to the cloud that can understand natural language, at least up to a point, and can give you the information you’re seeking. So why not a minimalist remote control with Siri included. “Siri, turn on the TV and set it to CNN. At 8 o’clock record Casablanca on HBO.” The problem with this is that, as we’ve established, TV sets are a commodity, and Apple doesn’t do commodities. Or does it? Those horrible little netbooks were the epitome of the commodity: worse and worse, but cheaper and cheaper. Apple pretty much knocked them off with the iPad, and now the MacBook Air. Who knows? According to those rumors, Apple TV’s will actually be built by Samsung. Would that be the same Samsung that Apple is suing for patent infringement… the Samsung that is suing back? Don’t change the channel! And the Beats Go On Those who believe that iPod owners don’t care about quality must be mysti- fied by the continuing success of very expensive headphones to be used with this same device. An example: the Beats by Dr. Dre, which we reviewed in UHF No. 86. Now the company has been bought up. The original Beats headphones, were launched by Monster, the cable people, with hip hop producer Dr Dre as the front man. Beats Electronics and Monster are only partners, however, and Monster does not own them. Now Beats The UHF Reference The Systems Netflix Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon W-8 Loudspeakers: Follies Reference 3a Suprema II Equipment reviews are done on at least one of UHF’s reference systems, selected as working tools. They are changed as infrequently as possible, because a reference that keeps changing is no reference. The Alpha system Our original reference is in a room with special acoustics, originally a recording studio, letting us hear what we can’t hear elsewhere. Main digital player: Linn Unidisk 1.1 Additional CD player: CEC TL-51X belt-driven transport, Moon 300D converter Digital cable: Atlas Opus 1.5m Digital portable: Apple iPod Touch Turntable: Audiomeca J-1 Tone arm: Audiomeca SL-5 Pickup: Goldring Excel Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono 2 Preamplifier: Copland CTA-305 Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon W-5LE Loudspeakers: Living Voice Avatar OBX-R Interconnects: Atlas Navigator All-Cu, Pierre Gabriel ML-1 Loudspeaker cables: Atlas Mavros with WBT nextgen banana connectors Power cords: Gutwire, Wireworld Aurora AC filters: Foundation Research LC-2 (power amp), Inouye SPLC The Omega system It serves for reviews of gear that cannot easily fit into the Alpha system, with its small room. Digital players: shared with the Alpha system Turntable: Linn LP12/Lingo II Tone arm: Alphason HR-100S MCS Pickup: London Reference Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono 1.6 Preamplifier: Simaudio Moon P-8 Interconnects: Atlas Navigator All-Cu, Atlas Mavros, Pierre Gabriel ML-1 Loudspeaker cables: Pierre Gabriel ML-1 for most of the range, Wireworld Polaris for the twin subwoofers Power cords: BIS Audio Maestro, GutWire B-12, Wireworld AC filters: GutWire MaxCon Squared, Foundation Research LC-1 Acoustics: Gershman Acoustic Art panels The Kappa system This is our home theatre system. As with the original Alpha system, we had limited space, and that pretty much ruled out huge projectors and two-metre screens. We did, however, finally come up with a system whose performance gladdens both eye and ear, with the needed resolution for reviews. HDTV monitor: Samsung PN50A550 plasma screen DVD player (provisional): Pioneer BDP- 51FD Blu-Ray player Preamplifier/processor: Simaudio Moon Attraction, 5.1 channel version Power amplifiers: Simaudio Moon W-3 (main speakers), bridged Celeste 4070se (centre speaker), Robertson 4010 (rear) Main speakers: Energy Reference Connoisseur (1984) Centre speaker: Thiel MCS1 Rear speakers: Elipson 1400 Subwoofer: 3a Design Acoustics Cables: Atlas, Van den Hul, MIT, GutWire, Wireworld Line filter: GutWire MaxCon Squared All three systems have dedicated power lines, with Hubbell hospital grade outlets. Extensions and power bars are equipped with hospitalgrade connectors. ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY <strong>Magazine</strong> 79 Gossip&News Feedback
Page 1 and 2:
No. 91 CAN $6.49 / US $7.69 ANALOG
Page 3 and 4:
Issue No. 91 Cover story: It’s sm
Page 5 and 6:
DOG-EARED MAGAZINES ARE WRONG! And
Page 7 and 8:
I was quite impressed with Paul Ber
Page 9 and 10:
the original models — true? I can
Page 11 and 12:
An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustr
Page 13 and 14:
Duissi exerat, quis nos nulla feugu
Page 15 and 16:
nonullam il et, quipit in ea faccum
Page 17 and 18:
TAVES did, however, run into a prob
Page 19 and 20:
utatue consequat. Cil et veraessisl
Page 21 and 22:
seemed as if the music was elevated
Page 23 and 24:
singers use that. And it’s the fi
Page 25 and 26:
Music and memory Is there such a th
Page 27 and 28: velendre er ing euis nonulla faccum
Page 29 and 30: sion. The dead time could be used t
Page 31 and 32: The people at Reference Recordings
Page 33 and 34: The Firebird ballet sounded disturb
Page 35 and 36: weight.” But the piano nonetheles
Page 37 and 38: Get UHF from Maggie on your desktop
Page 39 and 40: conullaor si bla consecte et exerit
Page 41 and 42: THE ACOUSTIC COLLECTION: This is th
Page 43 and 44: significant. Besides, we were reluc
Page 45 and 46: Products of special value, at The A
Page 47 and 48: speakers like those is not what the
Page 49 and 50: to the Red Book CD standard. The na
Page 51 and 52: Music was evident. “I picked up t
Page 53 and 54: INTERCONNECTS ATLAS NAVIGATOR Oxyge
Page 55 and 56: UHF14 POWER BAR Most power bars kno
Page 57 and 58: ed pepper to its music. Felix Hell
Page 59 and 60: We Get Requests (CD) An amazing 196
Page 61 and 62: There is lots of nostalgia in pop m
Page 63 and 64: them what should have been a rendez
Page 65 and 66: accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolor
Page 67 and 68: sendipit nit aliquisi eu facincidun
Page 69 and 70: lum alismolore ming esent vullamc o
Page 71 and 72: their church services. For them, an
Page 73 and 74: How to Sing the Blues Most Blues be
Page 75 and 76: unconvincing in the second. And —
Page 77: “Blu-ray Essentials” label, wit
Page 81 and 82: Blockbuster Canada, which is of cou
Page 83 and 84: Why do UHF readers start reading th
show all

ANALOG vs DIGITAL - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?