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Free Free Feedback Advice Advice McIntosh MC 501 monoblocks, Wilson Watt/Puppy 8 speakers, PS Audio P10 power regenerator. Power cords are all PS Audio AC12 The interconnects from turntable to preamp are Cardas Golden Reference RCA, for digital source to preamp and preamp to amps, Siltech Anniversary 550i balanced XLR, speaker cables are Siltech Anniversary 550i spade to spade. This system can produce the music with a lot of detail. However, I have recently upgraded to the Siltech and am finding the music to be a little on the bright side; shrill to the point that I can’t listen for too long. In short, not as musical as before. However, I’m not sure if it was due to the cables. I’ve been told that tube amps would give warmer sound, but I have never had tube amps. I’m currently looking at the McIntosh MC 275 Limited Edition 25th Anniversary version. However $6500 is a lot of money and I would like to seek some advice on tube amps and your opinion on these Mac tube amps as well as suggestion for a tube amp that would match well with my system. I enjoy the MC 501, and the 500 watts of power especially during a high tempo passage with a full orchestra. I would appreciate your opinion on my total system. Any area for improvement? Any weakness or mistakes that I have made in assembling them together? Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of your magazine until after I had purchased most of the equipment. I play classical music 95% of the time and I have a collection of 700-800 LPs. I do enjoy vinyl more than digital. Alfred Cheng TORONTO, ON 12 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine look before we leapt. For one thing the “tube warmth” thing is overblown if not downright wrong-headed. If an amplifier is any good, you can’t tell by listening whether it works its magic with tubes or transistors. You want to hear the music, not the technology. For another, if you’ve made a mistake, a second, opposite mistake isn’t going to fix it. In medicine that can be unavoidable. A drug fixes one problem but upsets your stomach, so you take an antacid to alleviate the heartburn, but it gives you migraines, so you take a pain GET THE COMPLETE VERSION! You’ll have noticed that this free version of UHF Magazine is not quite complete. But you can get the complete version from Maggie for $4. Click here, and away we go! reliever that makes you impotent, so then you… It’s easy to get lost this way. Perhaps changing your amplifiers would give you a less bright sound, but “less bright” is not how we would choose to describe the music system of our dreams. Backtracking is going to be painful, but you need to do that before you spend large amounts more money. If you still have your old cables, reinstall them and listen again. Is the sound less bright, the way you remember it? Is the lessened brightness accompanied by a drop in detail? Reintroduce the Siltechs one set at a time. At what point do you hear things going wrong? Do you hear the problem with both digital and analog? Do you hear it with both turntables? Our rule of thumb is one that is followed by the greatest military commanders: reinforce success, not failure. Do what you need to do to make the system sound good. Then, and only then, can you spend significant money to make it better. Silver bullets are tempting, but GET they FREE don’t ADVICE! work, because werewolves Where don’t do exist. the questions for our famous Free With Advice patience section comes come wisdom. from? Our readers send them to us at uhfmail@uhfmag.com. Alfred, let us begin with a piece The of questions, For years and our now answers, I have been using a general advice we’ve enunciated may before. appear on Linn line, Genki in the CD magazine, player. In or my both. CD col- Audio problems are not werewolves, and We lection don’t I reply have by a couple mail, of HDCD’s and the solution is not a silver bullet. That and a we number don’t give of SACD’s, it for free with more added may seem especially apt if you considering request that every your month. question At this not be time made I am public. (slowly) that your problems began when We you do ask digitizing for your my name CD collection. and city. However added the Siltech cables...which are, in in order Ask to away! digitize any of my SACD’s fact, silver. Siltechs aren’t cheap, and so (see your article in UHF No. 87) I need you have made a major investment that an SACD player. didn’t work out for you. Your sound is If possible this player should be a now bright. You’ve heard, as most of us combined HDCD/SACD player and not have, that tubes have a “warmer” sound make my limited bank account cry too than transistors. Good move? We would loud. Do you know of a “Genki compatible quality” player I could consider for this purpose? W. Flink VEENENDAAL, Netherlands Actually you aren’t digitizing your CDs. since their content is already digital. Rather, you are transferring the music to your computer hard drive, which is also digital. To get SACD onto your hard drive, you need to go through the analog domain. Software for direct conversion does exist, such as Korg AudioGate and Weiss Saracon, but we aren’t convinced that this sort of transcoding is superior to analog conversion. Your HDCD discs are totally compatible with the CD format, though to get the decoding you’ll need to play them back through a DAC that has the decoding. They are rare. Oppo does make a player that decodes HDCD and plays SACD...and Blu-ray as well. I’m trying to terminate my Audioquest Rocket 88 bi-wire speaker cables the best way possible. I was looking at your WBT nextgen spades, or Furutech spades/bananas. Is one better than the other (spade vs banana) if you forego the convenience? Is soldering better (with silver solder of course) or crimping? or both? I notice you don’t have the WBT crimping tool available presently. One final question: would just running the wires bare, treating with Pro- Gold and then inserting them into the WBT binding post on the speakers and amp be best sound wise? Your changing the connectors on your speaker cables got me started on this! Larry Upham HALIFAX, NS All else being equal, Larry, crimping is superior to soldering. We very much like the WBT system. And by the way we do have the WBT crimping tool once more. We prefer bananas to spades, because we plug and unplug things a lot, and they’re a lot more convenient. Some spades don’t fit some binding posts well, which is a problem for us, because we use our cables with a lot of different prod-
ucts. And finally if the binding posts are poorly machined, bananas will probably make a better contact. However some users prefer spades, and that’s fair enough. The WBT nextgen spades are especially effective, because their rubber-metal sandwich construction makes contact under pressure. They use the same crimping system as the bananas, and are interchangeable. I’m hoping you can give me some insight into the cause of a particularly nasty scratchy sound produced by my stereo, namely when it has to reproduce certain vocal or piano sounds. A good example would be the vocals of Norah Jones, or Neil Diamond. However, on some CDs, the scratching is completely absent, and the sound is magnificent. The problem is not volume-related. I have a Yamaha A-S2000 integrated amplifier, Cambridge Audio 650c CD player, DACMagic and Totem Rainmakers. I’m using basic cables, I have systematically isolated every component and cable except the amplifier. The amplifier is only four months old, but has produced this sound as long as I have had it. I have even tried a different AC power source, power bar, etc. Julian Picard PORT MOODY, BC For the answer to this question, check out our complete version, print or electronic. Re facin henis nisl iustrud enim aute duis dignisc iliscipissi. Tum veliquat ulpute dolore volore facipsum esequat. Ut lan veliquat praese facilit lutpat nibh euguero ea feuguer suscing enismod dolorero odiamco rtiscil lamconsequat wismod modion vel ulputat. Utpation utpat augait am, core tisi. An hendreet nonsenim dit, ver sustrud dunt utet autem quam, sis augue magniam consequat adipis adiam, consed te ming esent loborper iure commodio commodit lum zzriure vullumsan henim iustin utatum vel ilis aut loborperilla feum do odolore commodolore dolore dolesto eu feu feu feuipsu scipit ad molorem ex ero odolobore dolobortie digna conullaor si bla consecte et exerit lum alismolore ming esent vullamc onullan henisl ute core vent volor si. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum vulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum Get UHF from Maggie on your desktop or iPad anywhere in the world! An issue of UHF anywhere you live for C$4.00 Subscribing for as little as C$20 (tax in Canada only) www.uhfmag.com/maggie.html ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 13 Free Free Feedback Advice Advice
Page 1 and 2: No. 92 CAN $6.49 / US $7.69 USB DON
Page 3 and 4: Issue No. 92 Cover story: It’s be
Page 5 and 6: THE ONLY GOOD DOG EARS ARE… …no
Page 7 and 8: A note of thanks for your valuable,
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Page 17 and 18: attend press events, some with free
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Page 25 and 26: Q. What is a home theatre system? A
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Page 29 and 30: have to be careful with it. I regul
Page 31 and 32: Kandy K2 “A neat balancing act, c
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Page 39 and 40: equipment stands are wider than mos
Page 41 and 42: THE ACOUSTIC COLLECTION: This is th
Page 43 and 44: The optical connection Up until now
Page 45 and 46: Get UHF from Maggie on your desktop
Page 47 and 48: using the Atlas Opus (now discontin
Page 49 and 50: Conclusions That we would recommend
Page 51 and 52: as the Mavros, but it’s stuck on
Page 53 and 54: tant, but then they are usually pos
Page 55 and 56: INTERCONNECTS ATLAS HYPER SYMMETRIC
Page 57 and 58: UHF14 POWER BAR Most power bars kno
Page 59 and 60: ed pepper to its music. Felix Hell
Page 61 and 62: We Get Requests (CD) An amazing 196
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So you have, or plan to have, a cla
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van Swieten. The discovery marked h
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in which a multipart popular song w
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mentor Gustav Mahler, and others, s
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etween the ordinary and the spiritu
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songs. Except for the frothy Septem
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old friend, and is thus in a positi
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Do your friends have bassier speake
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eing formed with Hong Kong’s TPV
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Working Tools Most of the tools we
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Why do UHF readers start reading th
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