AMPLIFIERS - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

No. 75 $6.49 

AMPLIFIERS: Beyond the W-5, Simaudio 

takes its power amplifiers a step further. 

Copland reinvents an old favorite and 

makes it better than ever. CEC brings 

musicality to a more affordable range. 

OTHER REVIEWS: The new Veena from 

Reference 3a, a reincarnation of the 

Energy Reference Connoisseur, and a hot 

DAC from Benchmark 

PLUS: Paul Bergman on the true nature 

of hi-fi, and stereo too, the redicovery of a 

Bach contemporary, and Vegas 2006 

ISSN 0847-1851 

Canadian Publication Sales 

Product Agreement 

No. 40065638 

RETURN LABELS ONLY 

OF UNDELIVERED COPIES TO: 

Box 65085, Place Longueuil, 

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ASW Speakers 

QED 

Target 

Vandersteen 

McCormack 

Harmonix 

WBT 

WBT-0710CU 

also available in silver 

Reimyo 

Apollo 

GutWire 

ASW Genius 

400 

“It has all the volume you could 

ever want, its bottom end goes 

down to bedrock, and its top end is 

delightfully smooth.” 

UHF No. 73 

IN ONTARIO 

Audio Excellence, Toronto 

(905) 881-7109 

Audio Two, Windsor 

(519) 979-7101 

Fairview Hi-Fi, Burlington 

(905) 681-1872 

FIM Accessories 

Goldring 

Milty 

Perfect Sound 

Nitty Gritty 

Gradient Speakers 

LAST record care 

WATTGate 

Audiophile CDs 

JUST 

MAY 

AUDIO 

Just May Audio 

111 Zenway Blvd., Unit 9 

WOODBRIDGE, ON L4H 3H9 

Tel. : (905) 265-8675 • Fax : (905) 265-8595 

www.justiceaudio.com • sales@justiceaudio.com 

Audiophile LPs 

DVD and SACD

Copland CTA-405 Integrated Amplifier 37 

Copland launches an updated version of its bestever 

tube amplifier, and gets 10 out of 10 

CEC 5400 Integrated Amplifier 40 

Can a really musical affordable amplifier come 

from…Japan? 

Issue No. 75 

Reference 3a Veena 43 

How to get the sound the company has offered you 

without paying for expensive stands 

Once More With Energy 46 

A reincarnation of a speaker that was once our 

reference 

Benchmark Converter 49 

Everyone has told us we just have to listen to this 

little converter. All right, here we are! 

OneForAll Learning Remote 51 

There are plenty of remotes that can learn 

commands from other remotes…but not at this 

price! 

Cover story: The expensive and astonishing Moon 

W-8 power amplifier, Simaudio’s new flagship, 

reviewed in this issue. In the background: a cedar 

hedge in winter, photographed across the street from 

UHF’s HQ. 

NUTS&BOLTS 

The True Nature of Hi-Fi and Stereo 18 

by Paul Bergman 

What these words used to mean…and why they 

should mean that again 

FEATURE 

Vegas 2006 22 

by Gerard Rejskind 

Coverage of CES and T.H.E. Show with the usual 

UHF twist 

The Listening Room 

The Simaudio Moon W-8 32 

What more could Simaudio do a couple of years 

after the release of the amazing W-5LE power 

amplifier? 

CINEMA 

HDMI: the Magic Cable? 53 

Why they are, once again, changing the cable that 

connects your home theatre system 

RendezVous 

Making a First Impression 55 

UHF chats with the founder of First Impressions 

Music, Winston Ma, about how not to retire 

Is it like looking for the Unknown Soldier? 

Software 

Finding Graupner 57 

by Reine Lessard 

He was a contemporary of Bach, and a lot of people 

then thought he was even better 

Software Reviews 64 

by Reine Lessard and Gerard Rejskind 

Departments 

Editorial 2 

Feedback 5 

Free Advice 6 

Classified Ads 42 

Gossip & News 70 

State of the Art 72 

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine

UHF Magazine No. 75 was published in March, 2006. All 

contents are copyright 2006 by Broadcast Canada. They 

may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any 

means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, 

recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, 

without written permission from the publisher. 

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World Wide Web: www.uhfmag.com 

PUBLISHER & EDITOR: Gerard Rejskind 

ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Reine Lessard 

EDITORIAL: Paul Bergman, Reine Lessard, Albert Simon 

PHOTOGRAPHY: Albert Simon 

ADVERTISING SALES: 

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Ultra High Fidelity Magazine invites contributions. Though 

all reasonable care will be taken of materials submitted, we 

cannot be responsible for their damage or loss, however 

caused. Materials will be returned only if a stamped selfaddressed 

envelope is provided. Because our needs are 

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Ultra High Fidelity Magazine is completely independent of 

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Editorial 

Finally…in color! 

I had to look back to confirm it: UHF has never had an all-color issue. No, 

not even those slick, oversized, Vogue-like issues of the early days. The added 

costs in producing a page with four printing plates instead of just one were 

just too great. Those were money-losing issues, by the way, and beyond them 

came the need to economize. During a long period only the covers were in 

color. We gradually returned to sparse color inside the magazine only once 

the advertising demand made it mandatory. 

The decision to use color potentially affects more than just the bottom 

line. It also has an effect on the magazine’s editorial policy, and therefore its 

independence. If color on every page (or extra thick paper, or metallic inks, 

whatever) is to be paid for, it must ultimately come from the purse of advertisers. 

That means raising advertising rates and, implicitly, chasing away smaller 

advertisers with shallower pockets, and it then means keeping those larger 

advertisers happy. You may have noticed that UHF now has a lot of ads, but 

also notice that they are not the same advertisers you’ll see in conventional 

magazines. 

The reality is, however, that as the number of our advertisers has grown, 

and as more and more of them demanded color ads, we have been scrambling 

to find enough color space for them. In our last two issues we had increased 

the number of inside color pages to 32, and that was just barely enough. 

In the meantime technology has changed. Until recently, our printer 

required that films be made of our pages so they could burn plates; a color 

page needs four films instead of one, plus an expensive ColorMatch proof. 

Now the plates are burned directly from our electronic files, and the proofs 

are electronic too. The savings are being used to bring color to every page, 

except for The Audiophile Store insert in the centre. 

Albert Simon has really been looking forward to this. Among his other 

important roles at the magazine, he is the one who creates the superb product 

photographs in our pages. It happens all too often that he works to make a 

terrific color picture, and then we reproduce it in drab black and white. 

No more. 

The next show 

We know you’ve been expecting us to mention the next show for audiophiles, 

and here we go. The Montreal Festival du Son takes place on March 

24th to 26th in a new venue: the Sheraton Centre, downtown. With the new 

venue comes a new orientation. Organizer Marie Christine Prin hopes to 

attract distributors of digital cameras and video games as well as high end 

audio and video people. 

For the first time in many years there won’t be a UHF room. But that 

doesn’t mean we won’t be there. We’ll be covering the show with daily on-line 

reports on our Web site, and of course the full wrapup in our next issue. 

And that isn’t all. Also on line will be UHF’s virtual room at the Festival. 

You’ll see some of the things you expect to see in our room. And it will be 

open extra early, with lists of recordings you should have in your possession 

when you tour the show, if you don’t mind…er, embarassing some exhibitors. 

See you there possibly? 

 


WE DON’T LIKE DOG EARS EITHER! 

It doesn’t seem right. 

Printers do all that can be done to make every issue 

of a magazine perfect, but by the time it gets to your 

mailbox it’s all dog-eared, and it looks as though it’s been 

run over by a truck. And maybe it has. 

But not UHF. That’s because your issue is mailed to 

you in a plastic envelope…with the mailing label on the 

outside of the envelope, not on the cover. 

In fact, it’s at the newsstand that a dog-eared copy may 

be awaiting you. 

Where do copies sit around unprotected? At the 

newsstand. Where do other people leaf through them before you arrive? At the 

newsstand. Where do they stick on little labels you can’t even peel off? Well… 

Surprise! At a lot of newsstands, they do exactly that! 

We know that what you want is a perfect copy. And perhaps you’d rather pay, 

a little less for the privilege of having it in perfect condition. 

Then there’s the fact that with a subscription you qualify for a discount on 

one or both of our original books on hi-fi (see the offer on the other side of this 

page)? So what should you do? 

JUST SUBSCRIBE 

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The books that explain… 

The UHF Guide to 

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This is our original book, which has been read 

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accomplish. 

It’s a practical manual for the discovery and exploration 

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books easier. Includes in-depth coverage of how 

the hardware works, including tubes, “alternative” 

loudspeakers, subwoofers, crossover networks, 

biamplification. It explains why, not just how. It has full 

instructions for aligning a tone arm, and a gauge is 

included. A complete audio lexicon makes this book 

indispensable. And it costs as little as $9.95 in the US 

and Canada (see the coupon). 

Five dollars off each of these two books if you subscribe or renew at the same time 

This long-running best seller includes these topics: The basics of 

amplifiers, preamplifiers, CD players, turntables and loudspeakers. 

How they work, how to choose, what to expect. The history of hifi. 

How to compare equipment that’s not in the same store. What 

accessories work, and which ones are scams. How to tell a good 

connector from a rotten one. How to set up a home theatre system 

that will also play music (hint: don’t do any of the things the other 

magazines advise). How to plan for your dream system even if your 

accountant says you can’t afford it. A precious volume with 224 pages 

of essential information for the beginning or advanced audiophile! 

The UHF Guide costs $14.95 (Canada) plus 7% GST (15% in NB, NS, NF), US$19.95 (USA) CAN$25 (elsewhere). 

The World of High Fidelity costs $21.95 (Canada) plus 7% GST (15%HST in NB, NS, NF), US$21.95 (USA) or CAN$30 (elsewhere). 

See ordering information on the previous page. 

A $5 discount applies on either book, or each, when the order is placed at the same time as a subscription, a subscription renewal, or a subscription 

extension (if you subscribe, use the form on the other side of this page. No need to fill in the information a second time). 

PLUS: 

At last, all of Gerard Rejskind’s State 

of the Art columns from the first 60 

issues of UHF. With a new introduction 

to each column, 258 pages in all. Check 

below to get your copy! 

YES! Send me a copy of State of the Art . 

It costs just $18.95 (Canada) plus 7% GST (15% in NB, NS, NF), US$18.95 (USA) 

CAN$32 (elsewhere, including air mail)

Free Feedback Advice 

I am a long time reader but I have not 

subscribed in quite some time. I usually 

watch the local news stands and react like 

a school boy when the new issue comes 

out. I then treat myself to a sick day and 

read most of the magazine at one of my 

favorite coffee shops. The music there is 

pleasant but not quite hi-fi. 

Your magazine keeps me thinking. 

I’ve been designing and building audio 

gear for a while now and have not made 

a name in the marketplace yet. Soon 

though. While in school I came up with 

the “di-aural” crossover (and three other 

audio inventions) and never pursued the 

patent. 

Bill 

WINNIPEG, MB 

Let’s see… from February 3rd’s blog 

entry (www.uhfmag.com/Newsletter. 

html): the last component in a long day 

got you really excited. I feel the urge to 

guess what it was. 

The component that arrived last was, 

according to the entry for January 25th, 

the new Energy Ref Con RC-70. So that 

must be the component that got you guys 

really excited, hmm? 

Unless you mean the last item you 

listened to in the day’s lineup. 

Now, you also announce another site 

update for Feb. 3… which appears to 

be your own classified ad! You appear 

to be replacing the amp in your Alpha 

system. 

Well, the truth will out by the next 

issue, but I’m guessing that not only is 

the RC-70 all the speaker its forerunner 

was and then some, but the W-8 too has 

fulfilled all hopes. 

Toby Earp 

MONTRÉAL, QC 

Your second guess is correct, Toby. The 

W-8 was the final component listened to, and 

it has displaced the W-5LE, which has moved 

to the Alpha system. That spells retirement 

Feedback 


Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4 

uhfmail@uhfmag.com 

for the YBA, which has served us well for 

some 16 years. 

In reviewing your reference systems 

in your latest issue of UHF, I noticed that 

the Kappa system uses Energy Reference 

Connoisseur speakers. They do look 

very good…on paper, anyway. Can you 

tell me which issue of UHF they were 

reviewed in? I am a recent subscriber 

and I must have missed it. 

Love UHF by the way, and I thought 

The Man Who Invented Rock ’n’ Roll was 

some really great writing! Thanks, 

Reine! 

Brent Tuthill 

HENDERSONVILLE, NC 

The original Reference Connoisseurs 

were indeed very good, Brent, and not just 

on paper. The original review was in issue 

No. 9, which is still available. 

In the Atlantis Argentera review 

(UHF No. 74), the review panel stated 

that ref lex speakers have problem 

reproducing the wonderfully recorded 

tympani in the Olympic Fanfare cut from 

Wilson Audio’s Center Stage. 

Aren’t all Wilson Audio speakers 

reflex-loaded? If so, why would Wilson 

Audio record a cut that cannot be 

accurately reproduced through their 

speakers? 

Nathan Koh 

How to find an article fast 

Check out the table of contents on page 1. Click on a title, and you are whisked 

off to the page on which the article begins. 

Of course the same is true of the full PDF version too, the one without little 

messages like this one covering up the page. 

See it at www.uhfmag.com/Electronic Edition.html 

Wilson does indeed use bass reflex loading 

in its speakers, and they would probably not 

render the tympani impact correctly. 

But any good recording engineer gets on 

tape information his monitor speakers cannot 

accurately reproduce, or his amplifier either. 

This is as it should be, because it means the 

recording is better than the equipment available 

to play it. That’s the reason improving a 

piece of gear is worthwhile. If the recordings 

were no better than the playback system, that 

would be the end of the line. 

I have been reading and subscribing 

to your magazine for a couple of years 

now and thoroughly enjoy, especially 

the equipment reviews. I am a huge 

heavy metal fan and have been for more 

than twenty years now. Heavy metal is 

able to blend all forms of music into it 

(from classical, opera, jazz, progressive 

rock, blues, to even rap, dance, and 

industrial music). Do I like all types? 

Absolutely not. I love the fact that you 

have reviewed a couple of heavy metaloriented 

albums. 

On the other hand I am very disappointed 

by the latest “heavy metal” 

review of the Great Kat (UHF No. 74). 

That has always been a joke/gimmick 

band that is roundly laughed at in heavy 

metal circles. I am so disappointed that 

you would review garbage like that when 

there are so many bands who are pushing 

the boundaries, experimenting and 

progressing to surprising heights within 

the heavy metal spectrum. Kat is a joke, 

no different than Kiss or latest American 

Idol cash-grabbing musical product. 

There are bands that work with philharmonic 

orchestras (Mekong Delta and 

Therion, to name but two trailblazers 

over the last 15 years). In fact Therion 

toured North America and brought 

along a six person choir for vocals — 

something no band has ever done on this 

continent. And of course they played a 

number of shows in Canada. There are 

so many highly intelligent, progressive 

and interesting heavy metal bands, it is 

too bad you wasted space on the schlock 

of the Great Kat. 

John MacLeod 

CALGARY, AB 

We appreciate the heads up, John. But the 

PR contact for The Great Kat was miffed 

at what she saw as an exceedingly negative 

review of the DVD. Her letter follows. 

I was surprised at the negative review 

for Kat especially after the rave reviews 

we’ve gotten from music experts including 

Guitar One and Spin Magazine. She 

does have CDs, please see her website 

to get the facts straight: www.greatkat. 

com. 

Karen Thomas, President 

Thomas Public Relations, Inc. 

HUNTINGTON STATION, NY 


I have a small question to which an 

answer would return some of my thought 

resources to free flow. 

I play CDs on a Technics DVD A10 

player, used as a transport, into a Benchmark 

DAC1, then on to my system (not the 

Technics matching amp. 

I have heard, and read from dealers, that 

a dedicated CD player/transport would do 

a better job than the Technics DVD player. 

After some searching, I thought the Musical 

Fidelity XRay v3 CD player, used as a 

transport with my DAC would be my choice, 

due to price as much as anything. 

However your magazine mentioned the 

CEC TL51 transport. I’ve been unable to 

find a standalone transport. 

Would one of these two CD sources give 

my system a better front end? If so, which 

would you recommend? If your choice is the 

CEC TL51X, where might I find one? 

Drew Burnham 

NORTH VANCOUVER, BC 

Your Benchmark DAC1 is reviewed 

in this very issue, Drew, and as you’ll 

see we did in fact use it with a CEC 

transport, since we own one (our main 

digital reference is a one-box player, the 

Linn Unidisk 1.1). We thought it was 

an excellent combination, both from 

the standpoint of sound quality and 

price, and the price of the CEC makes 

it preferable to some other choices. 

Benchmark Media Systems, which 

makes the DAC1, claims that its patented 

circuit can reject jitter even from mediocre 

sources of digital data. Our guess is, 

nonetheless, that your Technics DVD 

player is not getting the best from the 

DAC1. 

CEC products are certainly difficult 

to find, however. The Canadian and 

US distributor is Mutine (www.mutine. 

com), which would no doubt be happy to 

point you to the nearest dealer. 

 

Free Advice 


Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4 

uhfmail@uhfmag.com 

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 

I have followed your earlier advice, 

both of a personal nature and for others, 

and devised the beginnings of a good sound 

system. I have a Cambridge A500 integrated 

and a 540C CD player, my speakers are 

Boston Acoustics A150’s (I added spikes 

and changed the spring clips to posts), I have 

made my own speaker cables, interconnects 

and powercords using quality materials and 

connectors (Wattgate, Hubbell and Mtchell). 

I love listening to music again but now I want 

to know your thoughts on what would net the 

most noticable gains and the more subtle. 

I am connecting all of my sources power 

to an AudioPrism Point 5 power bar, made 

for the Red Rose Spirit system, and I have a 

Powervar ABC-400 power conditioner that 

I would like to use on only my amp. The conditioner 

puts out 4 amps and the Cambridge 

A500 max voltage is 400. Is this too close to 

be used together without problems? 

My other question is in regard to my 

next upgrade. Would I get more from 

adding a decent DAC and using my player 

as a transport or simply getting much better 

(Vandersteen, Totem) speakers? 

Aaron McCullagh, 

VANCOUVER, BC 

We have no illusions about the 

Boston Acoustics speakers, Aaron, and 

it doesn’t sound as though you do either. 

At some point you may be ready for a 

change of both CD player and amplifier, 

but in the shorter term you may want to 

look at a speaker change. 

We wouldn’t feed an amplifier from 

the Powervar. You may be confusing voltage 

and current, so this calls for a little 

explanation. The reason the Powervar 

is rated at only 4 amperes, unlike most 

conditioners, which are rated at 15 amps 

or more, is that it contains a transformer. 

That transformer may do some good, 

particularly against electrostatic noise if 

we can assume it contains a proper electrostatic 

shield, but under heavy current 

draw it will saturate and cause a massive 

performance hit. The other components 

of the Powervar are intended to protect 

computer circuits from catastrophic 

failure. This is difficult to do without 

more performance hits. 

First, congratulations on a wonderful 

magazine! I will no doubt stop hesitating and 

very soon subscribe to the paper or electronic 

edition of UHF. 

I’m just retired and I now have time to 

enjoy listening to good music. I resisted getting 

rid of my 1974 Quad 33 and 303 and 

had them sent to the clinic last year for checkup/repair. 

However, I do not share the same 

fondness for my same-year Dynaco A-35 

speakers (slight upgrades to the memorable 

A-25’s). They have not aged well and sound 

compressed, worn out and long overdue for 

retirement or secondary duty! 

Notwithstanding the fact that I strongly 

agree with you that priority must be given 

to the musical source (my mechanicallyupdated 

Denon DCD-300 recently replaced 

by a do-it-all not so-hi-fi Panasonic DVD 

F87), I clearly require new loudspeakers. 

Like many, I love the sound of electrostatics 

(could not afford the EL Quads back in 

74). However, I cannot provide the back 

space usually required for such. And although 

I have not heard them yet, I am seriously 

tempted to net-purchase Newform Research 

R630 ribbons, highly recommended by a 

friend. 

I do not wish to haul my Quads to audio 

shops and test-listen numerous speakers. 

I do prefer crisp highs to thundering lows 

and will willingly invest up to $2500 for 

any brand loudspeaker that brings out the 

best of my 45 watts/channel Quads. Does this 

make sense? If so, what other high efficiency 

models should I be considering? If not, should 

I simply agree to part with my antiques, and 

use the same amount to purchase a totally 

new two-channel system? 

Jean Deschênes. 

GATINEAU, QC 

Jean, we feel compelled to repeat what 

we have said countless times. It may be 

true that your Dynaco A-35 speakers are 

not the best choice for a modern system 

(in fact they work quite differently from 

the A-25’s and are far inferior), but the

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reality is that until you have a better 

source you don’t really know how they 

sound. The “compressed” sound you 

describe is not necessarily their fault. 

A change of source is especially 

important considering your liking for 

“crisp highs.” Of course “crispness” 

is always used to describe reproduced 

audio, never live music, but if the source 

is not doing its job well, “crispness” can 

easily turn into a headache waiting to 

happen. 

We need to add that we don’t invariably 

consider source upgrades to be an 

absolute must, because otherwise we 

would keep buying better and better 

sources, and stay with the amplifier and 

speakers we had as teenagers. However 

your source should always be at least a 

little better than the rest of your gear, 

and at the moment yours is not. 

I have an Orfeo CD of Carlos Kleiber 

conducting Beethoven’s 6th, which incidentally 

was played through your Unidisk at the 

last Hi-Fi show in Montreal. The problem 

with the CD is that it will not play on a 

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 

Gyro SE Mk. II 

Michell’s precision turntables start at just $1995 

P. O. Box 218, Stn. CSL, Montreal, QC H4V 2Y4 

Tel. (514) 631-6448 

www.artech-electronics.com • info@artech-electronics.com 

computer because it is copy-coded. I have 

software to try to copy the tracks, but the 

fact that the CD will not play through the 

computer drive puts me at a disadvantage. 

Now I am not some pirate/hacker 

who wants to do this for fun or to place 

on LimeWire, but I simply want to enjoy 

this music CD on my iPod. Any ideas or 

suggestions? 

Nick Lakoumentas, 

MONTRÉAL, QC 

We’re at a slight disadvantage here, 

Nick, because we use Macintosh computers, 

and most anti-copy measures fail 

on Macs even when the Mac is specifically 

targeted by the anti-copy system. 

Users of Windows computers report that 

most copy control systems are quite easy 

to defeat, by such “high tech” methods as 

holding the shift key down while the CD 

is loading! Far more problematic is the 

fact that some of these discs will not play 

on car systems or even some audiophilegrade 

players…none of which have shift 

keys! 

The expensive workaround is to get 

a Mac, obviously, but there is a freeware 

program available on line to copy 

audio tracks to a new CD: http://www. 

audiograbber.com-us.net/. 

We hope you appreciate the irony: 

a system that is supposed to prevent 

copying actually requires copying if you 

want to use a recording you’ve paid for 

on your equipment. 

My aunt in Vancouver has a built-in 

Philips record player that requires repairs. 

She is well into her 80’s, would enjoy listening 

to her LPs but can’t. Any suggestions as 

to whom she might contact? 

Trevor Roadhouse, 

REGINA, SK 

It depends on what’s wrong with it, 

Trevor. If it’s the cartridge (a broken 

stylus, say), it can be repaired by any 

hi-fi store that still stocks turntables, 

though its own turntables would be way 

upscale. If it’s the turntable itself, it is 

very unlikely that parts for an old Philips 

turntables would still be available. 

If that’s the case, a new turntable 

might be what’s needed. The Source 

(the former Radio Shack stores) has a 

turntable (catalog 4202023) complete 

with built-in phono preamp, which could 

sit atop the record player’s cabinet and 

be easy to hook up to replace the dead 

turntable. One of the staff from the 

store might even be willing to deliver 

and install it after hours, for a small 

amount. 

After seven years of university, and well 

employed, its time to upgrade my audio. The 

last Sony ES two-channel receiver and CD 

player from the mid 90’s have served me 

well. The upgrade will consist of integrated 

amp and tuner, or a receiver, as I listen to 

a lot of radio. 

My source is the new Sony top-of-theline 

ES DVD player (the DVPNS 9100 

One click to an advertiser’s Web site 

Most of our advertisers have their own Web sites. 

ES). I am patriotic, and it would be nice if 

I could buy Canadian, so I am wondering if 

the Magnum Dynalab MD-208 receiver 

can hold up to British integrated and tuner 

combos from musical fidelity (A3.5 series) or 

from Arcam ( FMJ series). 

Keep in mind that power is not a priority, 

I rarely listen at loud levels. 

Daniel R., 

MONCTON, NB 

Just click on ad, and your computer's default browser will take you there!

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Advice 

The MD-208 is, we are given to 

understand, the result of a collaboration 

between Magnum Dynalab and Simaudio. 

In the context of your system, and 

considering your limited need for power, 

it may be an excellent choice. 

I just had a question about the foam 

inside or outside of my speakers. (B&W 

CDM1 SE) My son, a few years ago when 

he was younger, terrible twos or threes, used 

to put his little toy cars, action figures, cereal, 

etc. inside the front port of my speakers. 

When he pulled the toys out sometimes he 

would take the foam out too. 

I was recently reminded of this when I 

moved one of the speakers and some Cheerios 

fell out… None of the foam pieces had any 

glue residual on them, so I was wondering 

should I glue the foam pieces to the inner wall 

of the speakers so they don’t slip out of place? 

If I am missing any foam where should I buy 

the replacement foam? The foam was thin 

and reminded me of the packing foam found 

in tool kits/cases. Do you recommend an 

upgrade for the foam that is already there? 

I have to add I was thinking about writing 

before about upgrading my speakers, 

until I recently added a power amp to my 

home theatre setup. My RSX-972 is now 

used as a preamp, and then the speakers really 

came alive. I never realized how hungry 

these B&W’s really are. 

Jamie Hillier 

RICHMOND, BC 

Are the foam pieces complete slabs, 

Jamie, or just little chunks torn from 

larger ones? Did the foam really come 

from the inner walls of the speakers, or 

was it inside the port to dampen it? If it 

came from the walls, it will be important 

to reconstruct it properly. If it’s just port 

stuffing, it’s less critical, though it does 

affect the tuning of the woofer. 

Speaker designers usually favor largecell 

foam. The ideal solution is to get it 

from B&W, though as you can imagine 

this is unlikely to be the cheapest one. 

You can also get appropriate foam from 

companies that sell supplies for speaker 

home builders, such as Solen. 

My system consists of a Rogue Zeus amp 

(their top), Vandersteen 2ci speakers, Atlas 

Voyageur All-Cu 2m interconnect between 

preamp (Copland CTA-301) and amp, and 

Up to *320% more conductivity 

than the RCA or Banana plug 

you presently use. 

Bullet 

Plug also 

available 

in Pure 

Silver 

These connectors from Eichmann Technologies 

use high conductive Tellurium Copper contact 

pins in revolutionary designs that improve the 

sound quality of ALL cables. 

The weakest link in your system is likely to be the connectors. 

Even the best cables are compromised by poor conductive (gold 

plated) brass connectors. 

Introducing the Bullet Plug ® RCA connector – and the new 

Bayonet Plug Banana connector. A breakthrough in connector 

technology – and the closest approach to no plugs at all. 

Now available from: 

The Sound Room, Vancouver, 604-736-7771 

Signature Audio, Vancouver 604-873-6682 

Commercial Electronics, Vancouver 604-669-5525 

General Audio, Calgary 403-228-9130 

Audio 5.1, Edmonton 780-432-3232 

Sarah Audio, Edmonton 780-485-9770 

The Gramophone, Edmonton 780-428-2356 

Audio Two, Windsor 519-979-7101 

Hi Fi Fo Fum, Toronto 416-421-7552 

Take Five Audio, Mt. Forest Ontario 519-343-4451 

Radio St. Hubert, Montreal 514-276-1413 

Brooklyn Audio, Dartmouth 902-463-8773 

Web sales 

www.hifisupply.ca 

Exclusive Canadian Distributor 

Europroducts Marketing, Ltd. 

Tel: 604-522-6168 Fax: 604-677-6263 

Wireworld Equinox between the preamp and 

Ikemi CD player. My speaker cables at this 

time are nothing special, but I biwire and 

use WBT connectors. 

Would it represent much of an upgrade to 

go to the ASW Genius 400 speaker reviewed 

in your last magazine? I live in northwestern 

Ontario, so it is impossible to get a listen to 

these speakers before I purchase. 

Please keep with your great magazine, 

easily the best audio magazine around. 

Peter Boulton 

KENORA, ON 

NEW! 

Basis Bullet 

plug, goldplated 

brass, 

lowest-cost 

Eichmann 

reviews 

“The Bullet Plug has, 

overnight, leapfrogged 

the performance available 

from existing phono plugs, 

and disappeared over 

the horizon. The benefits 

are huge, HUGE! They 

transform the performance 

of affordable cables, and I 

can't wait to hear them on 

serious leads.” 

Roy Gregory - Editor Hi-Fi + 

Issue 12 July/August 2001 

“There was a cleanness to 

the sound that reminded 

me of hard-wiring.” 

Jimmy Hughes - Hi-Fi 

Choice December 2001 

“The effect (of the Bayonet 

Plug) absolutely amazed 

me – with such tightness, 

super fast and strickingly 

real unrestrained dynamics 

I have never experienced 

before.” 

Hi Fi & Records – 

Germany December 2003 

www.europroducts-canada.com 

*Brass is 28% IACS conductivity (International Annealed Copper Standard) where copper is 100% IACS. 

Yes it would, Peter. We wouldn’t say 

that if some of your upstream gear had 

notable weak spots, because we’ve always 

enjoyed the Vandersteen 2 speakers, and 

we wouldn’t swap them out unless the 

time had really come. 

Our one question mark concerns the 

speaker cables. If “nothing special” is 

code for “Home Depot,” you might want 

to change them at the same time. 

I think the upgrade bug has got me, but 

I’d rather get that than the avian influenza! 


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Advice 

The place to hear them! 

Of course Montreal audiophiles know Audioville is the place to hear 

the astonishing amplifiers and preamplifiers from conrad-johnson. 

So where would you go to hear the spectacular new CT-5 composite 

triode preamplifier? Or conrad-johnson’s new LPS70 amplifier? 

Audioville has them both. Of course! 

This weekend I had a chance to listen to a 

combo from Sugden from their Master Class 

series, the amp in pure class A (at 50 watts I 

believe) and the preamp. I thought the sound 

was stupendous, very rich and lifelike, a big 

step up from my YBA Intégré DT. I plan on 

going to have another listen with my Ikemi 

player, but unfortunutely I cannot bring my 

Winchester speakers…they really are a pain 

to carry around. 

I can get this pair for about the same 

price I would pay for the Audiomat Prelude, 

but for the same price as the amp I could get 

either an older version of the YBA 1 amp or 

a used W-5 from Simaudio. 

But I must admit I have always like the 

Sugden sound, and this amp is the best I have 

heard from Sugden. 

André Avon 

SAINT-JEAN-SUR-RICHELIEU, QC 

Actually, André, we’ve also liked 

the Sugden sound. The company first 

became famous for entry-level integrated 

amplifiers, however, and we can remember 

having to defend ourselves when we 

purchased their Au-51c preamplifier for 

what is now our Alpha reference system 

10 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 

(it was replaced by a Copland tube 

preamp some years later). 

We did get a quick listen to what were 

then the new Master Class components 

before distribution in North America 

ended. We have neither seen nor heard 

the Sugdens since their return. 

All this to say that the Sugdens may or 

may not be your best choice. Our opinion 

of the Simaudio W-5 and the YBA 

One is well known, since we own one of 

each, and we have yet to try an Audiomat 

product that didn’t delight us. However 

we note that, in the alternatives to the 

Sugden pair, you don’t list a preamp. The 

Audiomat is an integrated amp, but the 

Simaudio and the YBA are not. 

Is it worthwhile to use the Dakiom 

feedback stabilizers on a mid-Fi Yamaha 5.1 

home theater with PSB speakers? 

I bought a Moon I-5 integrated amplifier 

with a SEAS Magnesium cone woofer and 

a ScanSpeak Tweeter. The CD player is a 

Moon Nova with an Apogee Mini DAC. The 

speaker cables are silver-plated copper. 

The sound is too bright, maybe glassy. I 

don’t like to listen to a symphony orchestra 

with these. The low bass seems a bit thin. Do 

you think I should break in the system by 

playing it at a rather high level for a month? 

Should I replace the moon I-5 with a Moon 

W-3 amplifier? 

I liked the sound of a Redgum 60 

amplifier with a ScanSpeak carbon cone 

woofer and a ScanSpeak tweeter using the 

same speaker cables. I could hear the details 

without the glassy sound. 

Louis Handfield, 

SHAWINIGAN, QC 

Louis, you mention the drivers used 

in your speakers (SEAS and ScanSpeak), 

but not the maker. Should we conclude 

that these are speakers you’ve built? If 

that’s the case, you may need to shake 

down the design before you make 

expensive changes in electronics. You 

need to listen to the speakers with the 

very best electronics and source possible, 

regardless of whether you can or 

should purchase them. If you don’t do 

that, you can never be sure whether the 

speakers are merely passing on bad news, 

or whether they are the source of the bad 

news.

Free Feedback 

Advice 

The Dakiom devices appear to be 

similar, in concept if not in execution, to 

the Speaker Enacom we reviewed some 

years back. We found that they worked 

on some speakers but not on others. 

Albert bought a pair for the Apogee 

speakers he then owned, but does not use 

them on his Oskar speakers. We would 

be cautious about the Dakiom, however, 

because the company’s Web site is heavy 

on what we think of as disinformation. 

I have an older Linn LP12/Ittok (circa 

1988) which I equipped with a Linn Adikt 

MM cartridge to begin listening to vinyl 

again when I purchased a Creek 5350SE. I 

elected to purchase the MMSE phono board 

and the Adikt simply as a matter of economics 

at the time. 

I’m now interested in upgrading from the 

Adikt to the Sumiko Blackbird high output 

moving coil. What kind of performance can 

I expect using this cartridge through my 

standard MM phono board vs. having to 

purchase the Creek’s MCSE phono board? 

Any other options? 

Garth Letcher 

KELOWNA, BC 

The Sumiko will work fine, Garth, 

and it does not need, nor can it use, the 

MC board. High output moving coil 

cartridges have more or less the same 

impedance as conventional moving 

magnet cartridges, and don’t require 

the extra amplification of an MC phono 

stage or the impedance conversion of a 

stepup transformer. 

The reason most MC cartridges do 

need extra amplification is that, because 

the coil moves, it must have low mass, 

and thus fewer turns of wire. Though 

they are commonly referred to as “low 

output,” a better term would be “low 

voltage.” A transformer can adapt the 

impedance to a normal phono input, but 

the usual means is an extra amplification 

stage, because electronic circuits expect 

to get voltage, not current. 

“High output” moving coil cartridges 

simply have larger coils, which the higher 

impedance phono preamps like to see. 

There is of course a tradeoff. With more 

turns of wire the moving coil is more 

massive, and its higher inductance may 

mean poorer reproduction of extreme 

highs. 

1) Have you heard of a laser turntable 

that can play LP’s ? I saw a player on e-Bay, 

the ELP LT1RC Laser Turntable, with a 

“Buy It Now” price of $13.5k Can it rival 

the best of traditional turntables? 

2) Have you heard of ultrasonic speakers? 

Does it have the potential to be an audiophile 

breakthrough? It’s at http://www.usatoday. 

com/tech/news/techinnovations/2003-05- 

19-hss_x.htm 

3) You’ve heard of dissimilar metals 

creating voltages? Are there any voltages 

created between the PCB tracks (copper), 

the output connector (nickel plating), and 

the cable connector (e.g. gold)? If so, is there 

enough voltage to be a problem for audio 

quality? 

Bruce Touzel 

SANTA BARBARA, CA 

What interesting questions, Bruce! 

1) Some years ago we asked for the 

opportunity to review the ELP laser 

turntable. We were turned down, and 

instead we were invited to buy one at a 

“discount”…still well into five figures! 

We politely declined. Since then we 

have heard it twice. We were surprised 

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 11

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Advice 

The UHF Reference Systems 

All equipment reviews are done on at least 

one of UHF’s reference systems, selected as 

working tools. They are changed infrequently, 

and only after long consideration. 

The Alpha system 

Our original reference is in a room 

with extraordinary acoustics, designed as a 

recording studio. It allows us to hear what 

we couldn’t hear elsewhere, but there’s a 

down side. Not only is the room too small 

for large speakers, but it is also at the top of 

a particularly unaccommodating stairwell. 

Main digital player: Linn Unidisk 1.1 

Additional CD player: CEC TL-51X 

belt-driven transport, Counterpoint 

DA-10A converter with HDCD card. 

Digital cable: Atlas Opus 1.5m 

Digital portable: Apple iPod 60 Gb 

Turntable: Audiomeca J-1 

Tone arm: Audiomeca SL-5 

Pickup: Goldring Excel 

Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono-1.5 

Preamplifier: Copland CTA-305 

Power amplifier: YBA One HC (now 

replaced with Simaudio Moon W-5LE) 

Loudspeakers: Living Voice Avatar 

OBX-R 

Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1, 

Atlas Voyager All-Cu 

Loudspeaker cables: Actinote LB/ 

Eclipse III 

Power cords: Gutwire, Wireworld 

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. We didn’t set out to make an 

“A” (best system) and a “B” (economy) 

system, and we didn’t want to imply that 

one of the two systems is somehow better 

than the other. Hence the names, which 

don’t invite comparisons. Unless you’re 

Greek of course. 

Digital players: shared with the Alpha 

system 

Turntable: Linn LP12/Lingo II 

Tone arm: Alphason HR-100S MCS 

Pickup: Goldring Excel 

Phono preamp: Audiomat Phono-1.5 

Preamplifier: Copland CTA-305 

Power amplifier: Simaudio Moon W- 

5LE (now replaced with Moon W-8) 

Loudspeakers: Reference 3a 

Suprema II 

Interconnects: Pierre Gabriel ML-1, 

Atlas Navigator All-Cu 

Loudspeaker cables: Pierre Gabriel 

ML-1 for most of the range, Wireworld 

Polaris for the twin subwoofers. 

Power cords: Wireworld Aurora 

AC filters: GutWire MaxCon 

Squared, Foundation Research LC-1 

Acoustics: Gershman Acoustic Art 

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: Hitachi 

43UWX10B CRT-based rear projector 

DVD player: Simaudio Moon Stellar 

with Faroudja Stingray video processor 

Preamplifier/processor: Simaudio 

Moon Attraction, 5.1 channel version 

Power amplifiers: Simaudio Moon 

W-3 (main speakers), Celeste 4070se 

(centre speaker), Robertson 4010 (rear) 

Main speakers: Energy Reference 

Connoisseur 

Centre speaker: Thiel MCS1, on 

UHF’s own TV-top platform 

Rear speakers: Elipson 1400 

Subwoofer: 3a Design Acoustics 

Cables: Van den Hul, MIT, GutWire, 

Wireworld 

Line filter: Inouye SPLC 

All three systems have dedicated power 

lines, with Hubbell hospital grade outlets. 

Extensions and power bars are equipped 

with hospital-grade connectors. 

by the smoothness of the high end, 

which lacked the usual artifacts caused 

by mechanical contact with the groove. 

We were also surprised that, after the 

LP went through machine cleaning (not 

optional with the ELP) it worked reliably. 

In both cases, however, we found 

the bottom end unacceptably thin, and 

the lower midrange lacking in warmth 

and body. Both times we asked again 

about a possible review, and both times 

we were turned down. 

2) Well, the article in your link mentions 

that “the technology is still years 

away from becoming mainstream.” and 

in any case its purpose appears to be 


focusing sound at a distance. From the 

sound of it, HSS is more likely to turn 

up at a Wal-Mart display than in your 

stereo system. 

3) Since energy can neither be created 

nor destroyed, at least not without 

a license from a recognized atomic 

energy agency, the metals themselves 

can’t create a voltage. However heating 

a junction of dissimilar metals can result 

in a voltage. Can it cause a problem 

for audio reproduction? Not directly, 

because the resulting voltage will be 

DC…zero Hertz. However DC in the 

wrong place can cause misbehavior in 

amplification circuits, especially solid 

state. For that reason the junction of 

dissimilar methods is considered a Bad 

Thing in high end circles. 

That said, audio components are 

loaded with different metals in the signal 

path, including brass, copper, silver, 

gold, tin, and possibly rhodium, nickel 

and lead. We can’t think of a way to build 

a system with just one metal. 

My system is mainly Linn, consisting of 

a Kolector preamp, two Aktiv front Linn 

speakers with two 140 amps, an LP12 

turntable, a Linn subwoofer and a Linn 

Genki CD player. I also have two Linn rear 

speakers, a Marantz 8200 receiver and 7600

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Advice 

DVD player for surround sound. 

For a while the 7600 sounded better than 

the Genki. I took it to a dealer and asked 

about the Milty cleaning disc. He advised 

me not to purchase it. He took a look at the 

player and I suppose he cleaned it. It sounds 

better, but I imagine the Milty would have 

done the trick. 

Do I change the player or purchase the 

Benchmark DAC, or wait for the new Linn 

all-in-one player that is rumored to be 

coming out soon? 

David Coleman 

VICTORIA, BC 

We would be reluctant to change a 

Genki for an all-in-one, David, even 

one with the Linn name on it. The likely 

reason that your dealer advised against 

a cleaning disc is that a number of such 

discs are abrasive and can damage the 

player. He was probably playing it safe, 

and we might well have done the same. 

The question is how the Genki 

sounds now that it has (presumably) been 

cleaned. It’s a very good player, and it 

should sound that way. If it still doesn’t, 

it may need more than cleaning. 

Oh…but something occurs to us. 

Are you using the fixed output on your 

Genki? The Genki also has a variable 

output, which is there because it allows 

an audiophile who had just dropped a 

bundle on a Genki to avoid also buying 

a preamplifier the same week. The catch: 

through its variable output the Genki 

sounds as though it cost about $2000 

less. Which doesn’t leave much! 

First and foremost let me say that your 

magazine is the best out there, and all that 

I know about audio is all thanks to you 

guys. 

At present my system consists of a Linn 

Kairn preamp, two LK140 amps, a Rega 

Planet 2000 player, and a pair of Canadianmade 

StudioLab Reference Two speakers. 

Overall I’m pleased with the sound, but I 

feel the audio bug and I want to make some 

changes.The speakers will stay because they 

are, in my humble opinion, very good for 

acoustic music and smooth jazz, which is 

what I listen to most of the time. Anything 

else is up for suggestions. 

Would purchasing an amp the likes of a 

Moon W-5 or a Blue Circle 26 give me better 

sound than the two Linns LK140? What 

about my Kairn preamp? The CD player, 

I’m not sure if it is good enough. 

Ross Quartarone 

WHITBY, ON 

Yes, upgrading the LK140 amps 

would be the way to go, Ross, because 

chances are they are the weak spot 

in your system. They are of quite old 

design, now, and Linn is gradually 

changing over to products that reflect 

what it has learned over the years building 

upscale products. 

The Moon W-5…well, you know 

our feelings about it. We have heard the 

Blue Circle electronics at shows and that 

could be a useful choice as well. 

The Kairn preamplifier is also of 

older design, but we think it is considerably 

outperforming your amplifiers. 

I am working on designing a custom 

audio stand to hold my equipment and CDs. 

I am wondering about your thoughts on the 

impact to sound quality of placing a stand 

between speakers. 

My speakers are six feet apart. My room 

is only ten feet wide, so I am sitting close 

to the speakers. I am thinking of building 

something long and low, maybe 24 inches 

high and 18 inches deep, which would be 

placed between the speakers. The other option 

would be something taller but placed on the 

outside of the speakers, which would result 

in slightly longer speaker cable runs. 

If I were to place a stand between the 

speakers, do you have thoughts around the 

maximum size of the stand and what the 

impact to sound would be? I am told it is 

best to have nothing between the speakers 

and preferably nothing close to them. Is this 

true? 

Craig S. 

TORONTO, ON 

Craig, it’s true that it’s best to have 

nothing between the speakers, and particularly 

not anything that won’t absorb 

sound. For example, on several occasions 

we’ve been asked for advice about systems 

whose speakers were neatly placed 

in the little alcoves on either side of a 

fireplace. They look good there, don’t 

they? The spaces look as if they were 

just made for speakers. They weren’t. 

But practicality sometimes trumps 

ideals. We’d love to have set up our home 

theatre system with nothing in between 

the left and right speakers, but…ah, that 


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Advice 

wouldn’t work too well. No screen? No 

centre speaker? No joy! 

And when we have taken a room 

at a show, as we have numerous times, 

there was little alternative to placing 

the equipment rack between the speakers. 

At the last show, we used a pair of 

ASW Genius 400 speakers, which have 

side-mounted woofers facing inward, 

right at the rack. Not good. But it did 

work, and fortunately so because reallife 

constraints often force us to make 

compromises. Besides, the advantage of 

short speaker cables is real. 

Since your room is narrow, we presume 

that placing the rack to the side 

would still leave it not very far from the 

speakers. Whether you choose a central 

position or a side position, we suggest 

placing the rack somewhat farther back 

than the speakers themselves. The rack 

and the equipment on it will still reflect 

sound and perhaps even rattle, but it is 

less likely to generate diffraction and 

mess up your stereo image. 

I have been reading your magazine for 


years and look forward to each new issue. 

My system consists of a Simaudio Celeste 

4070 amp, a Sudgen Au-51c preamp, a 

Micromega CD player, KEF 104.2 speakers, 

a Revolver turntable with a Sumiko arm 

and a Shure V15 cartridge, and Grado R-2 

headphones played through a Bryston remote 

speaker switching box. 

My CD player is about 10 years old and I 

can no longer skip ahead to tracks, therefore 

needing to play the whole CD through to get 

to certain tracks. I’ve been looking for about 

half a year at the used market for CD players 

and have decided on either a Linn Ikemi or 

a McCormack UDP-1. 

I listen mostly to current jazz (Frisell, 

Scofield, Douglas), and indie and alternative 

rock. I have not found any SACDs for these 

bands and probably never will. 

I have recently become aware of the great 

reviews for the Benchmark DAC1. So, here 

are my questions: 

1) Do you think there ever will be SACDs 

issued for the styles of music I like? 

2) With a budget of $3000, which used 

player would you recommend, an Ikemi or 

a McCormack, or another for that matter? 

How would they compare to the Benchmark 

coupled with a CEC TL51, which would 

probably be within my budget purchased new? 

I know the Benchmark has a headphone jack, 

which is an added bonus. 

3) After the CD player, what sequence 

would you recommend I take to upgrade the 

other components? 

4) When buying used equipment, is 

there an age limit after which you wouldn’t 

recommend purchase? My Micromega is now 

giving me trouble, however my KEF’s are 

nearly 20 years old and still sound great. I 

have always loved Totem Mani 2’s, so would 

it be wise to buy a 10-year old pair of speakers 

at half their original cost? Would it be wise 

to buy a six-year old CD player such as an 

Ikemi? Getting parts for my Micromega 

is a problem. Would this be the case with a 

Linn? 

Colin Brophy 

TORONTO, ON 

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Ut augue conse magniscilis diam, sit alis 

Absolute Audio Video 

Calgary, AB 

(403) 529-2611 

Coup de Foudre Audio Video 

Montreal, QC 

(514) 788-5066 

Audio Eden 

Richmond Hill, ON 

(416) 346-3738 

Executive Stereo 

Toronto, ON 

(416) 927-1400 

Audio Excellence 

Medicine Hat, AB 

(403) 529-2611 

Listen Inn 

Lethbridge, AB 

(403) 380-2553 

Audio Two 

Windsor, ON 

(519) 979-7101 

Monitor Research A/V 

Richmond, BC 

(604) 279-9995 

Codell Audio 

Montreal, QC 

(514) 737-4531 


Vancouver, BC 

(604) 873-6682 

P. O. Box 218, Stn. CSL, Montreal, QC H4V 2Y4 

Tel. (514) 631-6448 

www.artech-electronics.com • info@artech-electronics.com 

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alis alit, quiscilit auguerosto od eumsan 



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Nuts&Bolts 

Feedback 

The word “hi-fi” was once a 

common noun: “the hi-fi,” 

often meaning some sort of 

phonograph/radio console 

much like the one shown below. Once 

stereophonic sound became a commercial 

reality at the end of the 50’s, “the 

hi-fi” was replaced by “the stereo.” Some 

of us recall confused consumers who 

would ask a record store clerk, “Is this 

record hi-fi or stereo?” Even publishers 

of supposedly knowledgeable publications 

showed signs of befuddlement. 

Hi-Fi Review would ultimately become 

Stereo Review, but spent some years in the 

limbo of the title Hi-Fi/Stereo Review. 

To be sure, the two terms are not 

contradictory. At the same time, they 

have lost their status as nouns, and not 

many people are clear on what they 

mean. I have been asked to begin with 

a historic view, and then to move 

to the present, to determine what 

each of these words means, and 

what each has to offer to music 

lovers in the 21 st Century. 

The emergence of high fidelity 

The term “high fidelity” is 


generally taken to have been coined 

around 1948, which I must add is before 

my time. This was the era of the first 

pioneers of sound reproduction systems 

billed as “hi-fi,” as high fidelity was 

quickly called, pioneers such as Paul 

Klipsch, Peter Walker (Quad), H. H. 

Scott and others. Certainly that was the 

start of the high fidelity industry, which 

shipped commercial products whose 

billing implied superior sound. In fact 

the term high fidelity had existed since 

the early 30’s, applied to recordings made 

with electrical microphones rather than 

older acoustical microphones. 

“High fidelity” clearly refers to 

faithfulness, sound that is faithful to the 

original sound of live music. That the 

term was something of an exaggeration 

will be apparent to anyone who has listened 

to a 1948 recording, and especially 

to one from 1932. Still, in a comparative 

sense recordings (and equipment) billed 

as high fidelity really were the result of 

an effort to make reproduced sound more 

like live music. 

I shall add, parenthetically, that, for a 

time the epitome of high fidelity seemed 

to be the “live vs recorded” comparisons 

organized by such companies as the 

loudspeaker manufacturer Acoustic 

Research. At these events, a live orchestra 

would play up until a predetermined 

point, at which time a recording would 

be substituted. Reports from the time 

said audiences were fooled, and were 

unable to tell the difference, thus confirming 

that the recording was truly high 

fidelity. However the first such event I 

have been able to track down was held in 

1926, and it is said audiences were fooled 

then too. It is the sort of news that shakes 

one’s faith in “scientific” A-B tests. 

Once high fidelity became a selfdefined 

industry, the principles behind 

it were clearly set down, and indeed 

they would sometimes even be listed on 

record jackets. As a result they became 

quite well-known, and in some circles 

they remain so today. 

Defining high fidelity 

In order to be considered high fidelity, 

a recording or reproduction system 

required certain characteristics. 

1) Complete frequency range. The range 

of frequencies considered adequate for 

music reproduction was once quite 

narrow: from 80 Hz (or “cycles per 

second,” as it was then) to 5000 Hz. 

High fidelity would need to encompass 

the entire range of audible frequencies. 

This was initially placed at 50 Hz 

to 15 kHz, and would subsequently 

be broadened to 20 Hz to 20 kHz. 

There was reluctance to include 

20 Hz, since it was nearly impossible 

for home systems of the day 

to reproduce such low frequencies, 

as it is even today, and there was

Nuts&Bolts 

Feedback 

furthermore some discussion whether 

20 Hz could truly be characterized as 

“sound,” since it was felt as much as 

heard. 

In the 1960’s a very few manufacturers 

staked out an even broader envelope, 

encompassing 16 Hz (the pitch of the 

longest pipes in large pipe organs), 

and some very high frequency such as 

25 kHz. 

2) Complete dynamic range. This implies 

the reproduction of the entire range of 

sounds from the loudest to the very softest. 

This could not then be achieved, to 

be sure. Very soft sounds might be lost in 

the inevitable system noise, whereas the 

loudest ones required 

far more acoustic 

power than even a 

very large amplifier 

could possibly 

muster. At the very 

least, however, high 

fidelity required 

that no compression 

be used (that is 

to say, no device to 

push up soft sounds 

and limit loud ones), 

and that recording 

engineers refrain 

from “gain riding,” 

turning volume up 

or down according to 

the musical passage 

being recorded. 

Of course, most 

people, even those 

with quite good systems, 

do not listen 

loud enough to avoid 

losing soft passages 

i n t h e a m b i e nt 

room noise, and for 

that reason record 

companies became 

less keen on wide 

d y n a m ic r a n g e . 

Nonetheless, early hi-fi featured some 

very efficient speakers designed to 

reproduce something more like realistic 

dynamics. The Klipschorn is the 

best-known example, since it remains 

in production, and some audiophiles 

actually purchased cinema speakers, 

such as Altec’s famous A-7, the “Voice 

of the Theater.” 

Even these could not encompass all of 

the range of live music. In a famous ad, 

Paul Klipsch said that not even his Klipschorn 

could reproduce the dynamics 

of his wife’s grand piano. Nor did most 

consumers have such large and capable 

speakers. With the demand for smaller 

speakers came sealed acoustic suspension 

speakers, with very low efficiency, such 

as Edgar Villchur’s celebrated AR-3. 

Though acoustic suspension speakers 

were capable of very good performance 

(the AR-3 itself was used in one of those 

live vs recorded comparisons), it could 

hardly claim anything even faintly 

resembling full dynamic range. 

3) High signal-to-noise ratio. This is 

of course important in dynamic range, 

and in fact the concepts are frequently 

confused. The dynamic range of music 

is the difference, always expressed in 

decibels, between the softest sound and 

the loudest sound. The dynamic envelope 

(my preferred term), which is that of the 

recording and playback system, is the 

difference, also in decibels, between the 

loudest sound that can be reproduced 

without excessive distortion and the 

noise floor. 

Both are certainly important in what 

we call high fidelity, but they should not 

be confused. For one thing the dynamic 

range can actually be wider than the 

dynamic envelope, because it is possible 

to hear information that is below the 

noise. As everyone knows from experience, 

a loud sound will mask a softer 

one so that it will not be heard, but the 

masking effect depends not only on the 

difference in loudness, but also on the 

frequency of each of the sounds. Nor is 

masking instantaneous. That is to say, at 

any given frequency, sound A must be a 

certain number of decibels louder than 

sound B before it gradually masks sound 

B completely. 

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Nuts&Bolts 

Feedback 

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Stereophonic sound 

The oldest commercial stereo LPs 

date back to 1958, but that was not the 

beginning of stereophonic sound. In the 

US, RCA Victor began making stereo 

recordings in 1954, releasing them as 

open-reel tapes, and the concept of 

multi-channel sound dates back well 

before that. 

For instance, there’s the Polyphone:

Nuts&Bolts 

Feedback 

I believe this device is from the early 

20th Century, and its purpose may 

not have been sound with added depth 

(which can have been only a pale shadow 

of modern stereo in any case), but merely 

sound that would be twice as loud. An 

additional advantage would have been a 

reduction in intermodulation distortion 

between sounds in the two channels. A 

somewhat more modern acoustic phonograph, 

the Pathé Duplex of the 1920’s, 

used discs rather than wax cylinders and 

was clearly a forerunner of stereo. 

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feu feu facilla faciduismod delit venit 

nullamcore molore commy nisi etue eui 

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iure dolut dolor sis nit in exer 

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zzrit, sequis nulla feugiat. 

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in ute ex erostrud minit vulput acing ea 

consequ ametumsan utat, sumsan exeraesse 

delis nonsequat. Ut alis amconul 

landignis dipisim irilismod min eum 

in euguerostie volorpe raesto cor sectet 

adiamet eugait am incincidunt augait 

nisit lamet, vulla commolorer iuscincipis 

amconullamet lor adio endreet adigna 

consectem zzriurem vel ut praesto dit 

landre exercil ismolortio od euisl ullam 

dolor sectetum iliquisci tisl ullan exer 

se enibh exerilissit doloreet lore minibh 

eugue tisi. 

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magna ad tet wisi. 

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consequ ipsuscipsum er sequat praeseniam 

et lore dolorem dolenim vel in 

henibh et, commod eros auguerat. Ut 

ullutpat luptat. Per incil dolenisim vel er 

alit niatio odionse esenim zzrit venibh et 

duis niam, sum del ulla feumsan drercin 

hent at amet nonum zzriusto odiat. 

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augait ex etumsan veliquis adionsenis 

et praessed dolore tat ip et accum 

nisi. 

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ent luptatue mincipisl do conum do 

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ustissed ex er aut nonsequat eummod 

deliquipit lor sisl dolum zzrilla ndiamet, 

quis am ex ea faccum dipsumsandit 

incilisl ulluptate do dolorem vero odit 

wis el dolor sed duisit elenibh er suscilla 

faci exer si. 

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lummolorem vulla feuisi. 

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henit lum velismolore delit vel euiscip 

esed tat landipsum quatum vel dolore do 

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velesto odionsequat at do dolent amconse 

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tem at prat alit am volore consecte 

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nulla feu feuisi tatie conulput velesequam, 

quam ipsum quat. Ipsuscilla feuisi 

tisi ex ea feum autpationum zzriusci 

bla consectet il esed ea aut incidunt 

amet, venisisi eliquis nit et la alissent ea 

accummy niam, con ullan utet lutat aut 

elent am dolorer auguer iriureet ex er in 

vel et ip erostincing et luptat, quismod 

tie delestrud eumsandre feuguerat in 

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feugueros eummolobore min eugue 

magna faci bla alit wis nostrud ting eum 

ad doluptat aliquat init la facidunt velisi 

ex et lum eugiat. Volor senim volorperos 

dolorero commodolor amet at. Duisl 

iure conse vel ut nulput autat, volorpero 

odit lum zzrilit eummolor sumsandrero 

odigna faccum volore eriusci eummolo 

borperos nos euissi. 

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tatue vullan utpatum qui te feuisi etum 

inci bla consenisit veliquipis nostinim 

digna ad magnis nos dipis eu feu facilit 

autat. 

Ent at at venim dit lore dit illaortie 

min henis alit la commy numsan henim 

vel exer inim num nis num velent 

inismol obortio diamet, vel eugiam 

atetum do dunt vero dunt veliquat. Ut 

in henis doloreetuer sum in velesto odo 

elenisl ullum vullum dunt nibh estrud 

do eration ercip exercilit prat, susto od 

del delesto odolobortie consequam vel 

utatie mincill umsandit augiam il eros 

alismodiat nim iustrud tat numsandiam, 

vel ex eros dolobor ercinis dolobor secte 

feuipsustrud et autpat accum dolor at, 

voloreet augue facip eu feuip ea faccum 

zzriliquat ute do consed modolorer alit 

la feuguero duisim velendrem auguera 

esequi tionsed tetumsandit wis eugue 

doloreet, vulla alit wis essis nonsequatin 

hendiam eugait velisse quatuero exeriure 

feugiat. Ut lobore feuis accum quisl 

utat at at lamconsecte estio ex ex exerili 

quiscin volorem quam, consenisl inim 

et iuscipit utpat. 

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feum in vel init utpat wisi. 

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at. 

Nullaortisis nibh elis nulputpat, si 

euguerit lum qui ent velessi bla consendipit 

volessi. 

Xero cor sum amet illummy nos esto 

euisl ea facidunt euis amcon henim 

aliquis cidunt ate vel iustion seniat. Ut 

nos alit utat alit in eugiam., sim nonse 

Lessis dolorem ex enibh eu facidunt 

iureet voluptat. Dui bla faci tem in ullut 

wiscipit alit dit enim vendiat volore 

vendion henis nit autat. 


Was it the biggest Consumer 

Electronics Show 

in history? CEA, the 

trade organization that 

runs CES, says so, with some 150,000 

visitors across four days. The Las Vegas 

Convention Center alone is said to span 

28 football fields (forget metric — the 

football field is the official North American 

surface measure), and that’s not 

counting the Hilton convention centre, 

the Sands convention centre, and the 

Alexis Park high end venue. 

(That does not, by the way, make 

it the world’s biggest trade show. That 

would be CEBIT in Hanover.) 

As is well known I missed last year’s 

show, for the first time in…oh, at least 

15 years. I was happy to see that in the 


meantime CEA had knocked some rough 

edges off the show. We did get our badges 

mailed to us (from Sweden…go figure!) 

though it took over an hour of waiting 

to get the badge holders while the staff 

sobered up (I’m making that part up). 

There was parking at Alexis Park, at least 

for those who showed up early enough. 

A few shuttles actually operated the day 

before the show. On the other hand, 

check the sign at right, and you’ll see it 

points to a dead end. They all did. 

The rebel high end show (T.H.E. 

Show) was back right next door to Alexis 

Park, smaller this year, without the 

overflow rooms at the San Remo. But 

the show maintained its “free lunch” 


every noon hour, forcing CEA to do 

the same at Alexis Park, albeit with less 

grace (signs saying do not take more than 

one hamburger or hot dog gave it a school 

cafeteria tone). 

CES also threw in a special event 

for the press two days before opening 

day: a huge buffet at which exhibitors 

paid for tables so they could meet the 

press. It was clearly the show’s answer 

to ShowStoppers, the off-site buffet 

that has been running for several years. 

A number of tables were interesting. 

Shure, known to the iPod crowd for its 

upscale in-ear phones, was demoing it’s 

latest and greatest: the US$499 E500. 

I liked them, and they fit my ears too, 

something I can’t say about most ear 

buds. Also there was the latest remote 

from Harmony. It resembles the one we 

reviewed in UHF No. 73, except that it 

is even more customizable. Oh yes, and 

it costs US$350. 

The press centre at Alexis Park, once 

an afterthought, was the champion of the 

three centres, with the best snacks and 

the best Internet connection. The new 

one at the Sands had no connection at 

all. The big one at the LVCC did, but it 

was so overwhelmed it was impossible to 

get on. On the first day I hopped onto 

an open network that belonged to…Lord 

knows whom. On the other days I found 

an Ethernet cable behind a desk and got 

on that way. I don’t know what the other 

reporters did. The press centres close 

when the show does (anyone see anything 

wrong with that?), and so my final 

on-line report was done from the Apple 

store on the Strip. Thanks, Steve. 

But you want to know whether there 

were products worth hearing. Yes there

Feature 

were, and I was happy to sit and listen for a 

while. Look over some of the amplifiers on 

this page. 

At top left is the Antique Sound Lab 

Explorer, a monoblock with more muscle 

than you expect from a single-ended 

amp: 45 watts. It goes for US$3K… 

and that’s for a pair. It sounded nice. By 

the way, those isolating devices it’s sitting on are from 

Granite Audio. 

Among the most costly electronic brands 

typically showing up at CES is Boulder: their 

phono stage alone is just under US$30K. I was 

surprised to see the company launching a 

new line of economy amplifiers. Of course 

“economy” has a relative sense at Boulder. 

How does $10,000 fit into your 

budget? No? I didn’t hear them 

by the way. 

However I did hear the 

new VTL S-400 monoblocks, 

one of which is 

shown at left. I’m not sure 

why it’s not called the 

S-450, since it is rated 

at 450 watts for one 

channel, but either way 

it’s a lot of power for a 

music amplifier, and 

that goes double for a tube 

amp. I liked what I heard: one of the rare LA4 jazz LPs I don’t own, 

through a VTL TL6.5 preamp and Wilson Watt/Puppies. Definitely a 

high spot! The price: just add 35% to 

the price of the new Boulders and 

you’re there. 

Large amplifiers is what you 

expect to see at CES, but tiny 

ones were in evidence as well. The purple ones at top 

right are from Kharma, the company known for expensive but rather good 

speakers mostly using ceramic drivers. These MP150 monoblocks, equipped 

with switching power supplies, cost less than you’d expect from this company: 

US$3400. I actually preferred the Nuforce switching amp, the red one above. I heard 

it driving a pair of Usher Dancer speakers, those big speakers you’d swear have to be Italian 

but actually come from Taiwan. They were ghastly in Usher’s room, but they pretty much 

came to life with the Nuforce. That’s all I can swear to. 

The large tube amp above right is a prototype of the Art Audio Vivo, 

which gets some 40 watts per channel out of pushpull 

320B tubes. In case the number is new to 

you, it’s Tesla’s version of the famous 300B. 

It will cost about $13K once a little more 

engineering and decor work is done on it. 

The little unit below the VTL is the Audio 

Zone passive preamp, a gorgeous piece from 

Toronto using multi-tap transformers for volume 

control rather than potentiometers. I listened to 

it with a small amplifier from the same company 

and single-driver Omega speakers. On recordings of 


Feedback Feature 

Wynton Marsalis and singer 

Dianne Reeves the system 

was a delight. 

At bottom left on the 

previous page, with the 

odd cage protecting 

the tubes, is a new 

preamplifier from 

Rogue, the Perseus. 

Complete with an 

M M / M C p h o n o 

stage, it will sell for $1795. 

The gorgeously-finished integrated amplifier at 

right is from Japan’s Almarro. Some years back we saw them come to CES with 

what had to be the world’s least expensive 

(but by no means worst-sounding) 

tube system in the world. The A5070A 

is a long way from that modest setup, 

though its price (from $2250 depending 

on finish) still looks economical 

alongside some other amps here. With 

its own M3A speakers ($2600), it was 

nonetheless one of the bright spots at 

the shows. 

I also got to see but not hear a new 

Oracle preamplifier, the Temple, with 

Jacques Riendeau’s usual eye-catching 

stainless steel exterior. 

Since T.H.E. Show hadn’t booked 

the large rooms at the San Remo this 

year, I wondered where Halcro would 

be showing its large (and magnificent) 

amplifiers. It turned out the company 

simply pretended it had a large room! 

With an emmLabs player and Classic 

Reproduction speakers the demo was 

all about shock and awe. 

Oh…you’re probably wondering 

about the blinged-out piano at left. It’s 

a Bösendorfer, covered with thousands 

of Swarowski crystals. Liszt would 

have loved it! It wasn’t just for show 

either. The company scheduled a 

couple of concerts in this (unfortunately 

small) room. You probably know that 

Bösendorfer now makes loudspeakers, 

which is the reason for this room. 

The verdict: for the moment I still 

admire the company for…its pianos. 

Some other speakers were more 

impressive. 

The new Thiel CS3.7 might have 

been one of them…if Jim Thiel (shown on the next page with his baby) had had time to complete the crossover network. And 

for Jim this is no trivial task, because his crossovers have more parts than some amplifiers. This was his first new high-end 

speaker in several years, and he promises something different. The woofer uses a ribbed aluminum cone, as does the passive 

radiator (this is a two-way speaker). The midrange, with its concentric tweeter (also shown on the next page), is also aluminum, 

as is the black dome that forms the top of the cabinet. 

24 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine


I finally got to hear the 

AudioNote LX Signature 

speakers, at right. This is 

the antithesis of speakers like 

the Thiels, eschewing heavy 

construction in favor of the 

thinner woods and varnishes 

you might find in the workshop 

of a violin maker in Cremona. I spent 

a little time listening to them (driven by other AudioNote 

components). It has an outboard crossover, and is wired with 

silver, which can give you a hint about the price range. I must 

say it sounded quite nice, but in a “hi-fi” sort of way. This isn’t 

the way real music sounds — no, not even violin music — and 

I lost interest not long after. 

I had a rather more enjoyable time with the Escalante Fremont speaker, shown 

at left. Though it requires a stand (which is included), this is not a bookshelf 

speaker. That woofer is 30 cm across…and there’s another the same size behind 

it. The pair is direct-coupled for maximum dynamics. The tweeter is unique too, 

as you can possibly just make out from the picture. Driven from a pair of equally 

unusual monoblocks from Butler (they were new to me as well), the Escalantes 

constituted one of the high spots of the five days of the show (or was it six?). 

I’ve gotten used to seeing Cabasse show up with speakers that include a coaxial 

midrange and tweeter mounted in what seems to be a giant eyeball. This year 

the company went one better: a tweeter, midrange, lower midrange and woofer, all mounted in a giant 

sphere called (wait for it) La Sphère. That’s it below right. If you’re turned off by the strange stand, 

which seems to be made up of discarded woofer frames, Cabasse replies soothingly that the model is a 

long way from production, and that the final version will have a different stand. And it won’t be white 

either. This four-way speaker comes with its own digital electronic crossover and its own amplifiers. 

Claimed response is -6 dB at 20 Hz. I don’t doubt that a bit, 

though on the basis of what I heard it isn’t just the stand and 

color that need tweaking. Still, this is potentially an impressive 

speaker for…ahem, big rooms! 

I got to hear the latest version of the large Acapella Violon, a 

horn speaker whose other distinctive characteristic is its nearly 

massless ionic tweeter. The main enclosure is now closed, not 

ported, but in other respects this remains one of the world’s 

best speakers. 

Elsewhere I got to chat with Ely and Ofra Gershman, 

who had brought the Black Swan speaker I had heard at the 

Montreal show in April. They were driven by Manley electronics. I also very 

much liked the Jorma design speakers, in a room labelled “Swedish Statement” 

for the nationality of all the components present. On a recording of Stravinsky’s 

evergreen Firebird, it was evident this large speaker had been put together right. 

Ever on the lookout for something new, I got my hopes up when 

I saw the familiar name Revolver on one of the Alexis Park 

rooms. Was this British company back from the dead? And 

was it once again making turntables? Alas, no. This is a new 

company, and it has brought back only the name, not 

the turntable, nor anything else that revolves. It’s in 

the speaker business. That’s nice, because we don’t have 

enough speaker companies, do we? 

But I’m a pushover for a new speaker if it looks 

unusual, so how about the “Oh,” at left? Yes, that’s its 

name. It’s Italian (what else?), and you can think of it as a 

tiny version of the eye-like Cabasse. It comes as a table-top 

or on a stand, for stylish home theatre. 

Complete report in the print edition 

And in the on line electronic version. 


Feature 

Ready for some other unusual speakers? I always 

am. 

So what’s this at right? An electrostatic? Actually the 

Analyst Audio’s tapered shape hints at its true nature: 

it is a full-range ribbon speaker, tall enough to get a 

basketball scholarship. Visitors quickly compared it 

to the ribbon speakers from the defunct Apogee, but 

it seemed evident that they don’t have the pervasive 

edginess of the Apogees. They seemed to get along well 

with the large Antique Sound Lab tube monoblocks 

driving them. They’re expensive, but less so than their 

size would suggest, at just under $15K. They are, by 

the way, from Greece, not the country that first comes 

to mind when you think of high end audio. 

I always think that a show without some off-thewall 

speakers is a disappointment, so I was happy to see the Planet Diamond 

speaker at lower left. Created by a Hong Kong company called Metal Sound 

Design, it has a tweeter mounted in a black round panel that can be rotated 

into different positions to match the room acoustics. It’s amazing to look at 

and every bit as amazing to hear, with great presence and an exceptional 

image. Will its $65K price tag be a hindrance? We’ll see whether it’s 

back next year. 

From mainland China is the XLH REF 1912 speaker at lower 

right. You need only one look to know that it’s WAF (Wife Acceptance 

Factor) can’t be very high. It’s as large as it looks in the picture, with 

that midrange horn, a bass section, a couple of what seem to be upper 

midrange drivers, and a ribbon tweeter. I’m not sure the sound is 

quite up to the $50K price tag (which is probably theoretical), but 

the image was surprisingly terrific, especially for a speaker that size. 

Just as unusual was the CD player, a Leonardo CD-A9.3 (ah, those 

poetic Chinese), with an amusing round remote control. 

In the same suite was the (relatively) tiny Tetra speaker, at bottom left, 

priced at just $3K. I spent a little more time with it, listening to a familiar 

Holly Cole CD on yet another eccentrically-styled set of components. 

The whole set sounded amazingly good, with the Tetras drawing the 

most from their reduced size and non-rectangular shape. 

I got to listen once again to the Aurum Acoustics system, which 

includes a pair of large triamplified speakers (with four of the six 

amplifiers being single-ended tube units), and the optional CD-preamp. 

I thought they had gotten really good at the Montreal show, and they 

were every bit as good in Vegas. The Aurum gear had just entered 

full-fledged production…which means it may be the right time 

to think about a review. A warm review in all likelihood. 

Too bad the speakers shown here are not to scale (if they were, 

either the XLH would have required a bigger 

page, or you would have needed a 

magnifying glass for the Tetra). 

The NEAT MFS at immediate 

right, is quite compact, but you 

can’t tell that by listening. This is 

another of those speakers with 

dual (Isobaric) woofers and 

a couple of ribbon tweeters 

atop…a supplement to the 

inverted dome tweeter 

on the front baffle. Nice 

speaker on the evidence. 



The speaker at left is…a 

Wilson Watt-Puppy? No, it’s a 

Hyperion HPS-968. Its shiny 

twin woofers have aluminum 

cones, the midrange (in the 

top section) is carbon fibre, 

and the tweeter is a silk dome. 

I heard a gorgeous duo piano 

piece that showed off nicely the ease with 

which these Hyperions handle dynamics. And after applauding 

speakers that turned out to cost like Porsche Boxsters, its price, US$6500, looks 

downright reasonable. 

Can you guess the identity of the speaker at far right? You would probably 

never expect it to be a JBL, from the ubiquitous Harman International stable. 

JBL has just turned 60, and the TL260 is intended to celebrate. I think I would 

have looked for a more celebratory name, myself. I didn’t hear it, but I did hear 

the new JBL flagship, the Project Array. Pretty good, particularly if you don’t 

expect JBL speakers to sound like music. 

The saddest no-show at CES was Innersound, which makes large 

electrostatic speakers that can sound excellent. The company left its room 

unoccupied, posting on the door a rather 

sad letter complaining that (sniff!) no one 

was buying the company’s speakers. But fear 

not, it would be back with a less costly 

hybrid speaker, to be called Windsong. 

A number of journalists I chatted with 

commented on the number of turntables in 

use at the shows. Indeed. And there were some unusual ones too. 

The buzz of Vegas was Australia’s Continuum turntable, 

shown at left. You can tell it’s expensive, because this isn’t the 

sort of product you can mass-produce, but is it any good? I 

looked with skepticism at its Cobra arm, which reminded us 

of the arms on the RCA Victor 45-rpm tables. Then there’s 

the tone arm wiring that rises high in the air, the better to 

catch hums and buzzes (I’m just guessing). The demo was not 

really convincing, which doesn’t prove anything. The price? The 

little card said it was yours to take home for a mere $85,000…and I 

don’t think those were Australian dollars. 

Also surprising was the presence of a Garrard 501 (lower left), one of the 

last of the marque before the British company entered the realm of mere legend. 

Oddly, the company patents wound up in the hands of Bentley, where it was ultimately 

bought by Loricraft, which markets it under that name in Germany. The 501 is still an 

idler-driven turntable, as you can see by the photo at bottom left. I was 

told that a German magazine had reviewed 

it and found it to be quieter than any 

other turntable ever tested, with the 

Linn LP12 coming in second! Ah, 

that German Schnapps! 

There was a new unipivot tone 

arm from Denmark’s Mørch, at right 

on a Eurolab turntable. Though Mørch 

arms are usually quite inexpensive, 

this one runs to nearly $5K. It features 

weights that are farther out from the pivot, 

to increase the moment of inertia. It did everything 

well on an organ recording that went way down to 

infrasonic frequencies. Interesting. 



O ver t o t he 

“zoo,” the convention 

centre. Note 

the LG banner, in the picture at left, the height of a tall hotel. 

Big is what Vegas is all about. 

Brand names come and go, and one that has returned is 

Audiolab. The company was known for affordable amps, 

preamps and other products, some of them quite good. It 

was then snapped up by Tag McLaren, a company related 

to, but not identical to, the famous F1 racing stable. Tag 

McLaren held a patent on some of the world’s worst 

marketing methods, one of which seems to have been 

doubling prices without perceptibly increasing value. 

The company folded, and was bought by (who else?) the 

Chinese (the company that owns Quad, Wharfedale, 

etc.). The brand name is now back, with something of 

the original look. Indeed, I was told one of the original 

engineers is still part of the UK design team. Production is of 

course in China. I didn’t get to hear the 8000S amp shown here, 

nor the new Audiolab-branded speaker, just below it. 

Totem Acoustic may have kept its eye on purist two-channel 

stereo, but it is also developing new products for home theatre. 

Its new Tribe speakers are long and thin, and can be positioned alongside 

and underneath a video screen. Also launched at the show was the new Storm 

subwoofer, shown at right. What you see in the picture is not a woofer, but a 

passive radiator…essentially a reflex port with a cone to add acoustical resistance. 

There’s one on the other side as 

well. The real woofer is on the front. 

As for the subwoofer just below the 

Storm, note the little antennas sticking 

up from it. It’s from Firebird Sound, which 

has a whole range of speakers which run wirelessly. They simply piggyback on the same 

Wi-Fi network you may already have at home to connect your laptop to the Internet. 

The subwoofer shown can also operate conventionally: note the (terrible) connectors 

near the bottom of the panel. 

One of the perennial exhibitors in the Central Hall is the Home Recording Rights 

Coalition. Not so many years back the HRRC was lobbying to keep Big Music from 

preventing people from copying recordings onto cassette (oh, they tried). Since then its cause 

has been losing ground. The US law on copyright is the most stringent in the world, 

making it illegal to find a way around copy control technology even to make legal copies 

under “fair use” exemptions. In the picture below, HRRC’s Robert Schwartz gives a TV 

interview on the topic. 

Note the button shown 

behind him, asking, “Is 

it still legal?” In many 

cases the answer is no. 

(By the way, a similar 

law was introduced in 

Canada last year, but 

died on the order paper 

because of the election. 

The new Conservative 

government will probably 

not bring it back, 

and may even cancel 

the surcharge on blank 

media such as CDs.) 



W here is rad io 

going? The truth is that 

FM is potentially the 

highest fidelity broadcast 

medium available 

to us, but not everyone 

knows that. There’s 

a widespread feeling 

that…well, the future 

is dig ital. Mag num 

Dynalab doesn’t agree, 

and was showing a new 

upscale FM tuner, the 

MD-109, shown at top 

left. Or perhaps it does 

agree. The $10,000 tuner 

is billed as “satellite-ready,” 

which seems to mean it can 

be upgraded to receive either 

Sirius or XM, depending on 

which one wins the war. 

Lots of other manufacturers, of course, have made their 

choice, like Porsche Design, whose Etón receiver, above left, 

can pull in XM, FM, AM, and (if we can believe the selector 

knob) shortwave. There was an explosion of satellite radio 

receivers this year, apparently fuelled by the availability of 

low-cost chips. The two systems remain incompatible, of 

course. The XM group had a well-attended press conference, 

at which it was announced that the system now has six million 

subscribers (wild applause from what appeared to be a house 

claque) and will soon have nine million (more applause on cue). 

Sirius had a much lower profile, even though it was launching 

what it considers its ace in the hole, Howard Stern. 

“High fidelity” applies not only to musical reproduction but also to musical 

production, such as singing. The man with the microphone at right is showing off an 

interesting piece of software called Singing Coach. Sing into the microphone, and 

the software will show you what note you sang and how far you were off. I much 

prefer that to some current software used in studios that corrects your singing, so that 

you sound musically competent even if you couldn’t carry a tune across the room. 

Oh yes…the “Universal Power Bank” shown at 

left. It’s a $300 device that not only can recharge 

whatever slick portable gear you have, such 

as a phone, PDA, computer, etc., but can also 

extend their power if they run out of juice. Put 

it into the bottom of your carry-on, and you can watch 

a couple of movies on your laptop before the plane lands. That 

naturally appealed to me, as I toured the shows with a bag loaded with 

technology, keeping a wary eye on the charge levels. Want us to review one? 

You do, don’t you? Right? Right? 

I’ve already requested a review sample of the iGo, which can recharge all that 

stuff too, but only if it has AC power. When it’s gone, it’s gone. 

If you’ve toured an electronics shop lately, you might have concluded that the 

market is so saturated with iPod accessories that there can’t be room for more. Yet 

there were countless such accessories being launched, including the nice little case 

at right. I even made a request to two companies, OWC and Griffin. I want a device 

that will get the digital signal out of an iPod in S/PDIF format. Then we’re getting 

somewhere! 


Feature 

Home theatre was hot this 

year, w it h interest ing 

new technologies on the 

horizon. The ones most 

anticipated were Blu-Ray and HD DVD, 

battling it out for hearts and minds, each 

trying to look as though it is mere days 

from launch. Sharp even showed a Blu- 

Ray recorder, below, and 


there were a few Blu-Ray discs around, 

like The Matrix below right. No you can’t 

buy them, and don’t stand on one leg. 

Both looked good. Toshiba, the 

major company behind HD DVD, had 

a 1080p screen showing an HD image. 

It looked wonderful, though the several 

Blu-Ray demos did too. So which was 

better? I spent a few minutes before 

a pair of Pioneer screens showing the 

two systems side by side. The winner? 

Clearly Blu-Ray. 

But new disc systems 

were not what was causing 

the buzz. In 

UHF No. 74 we 

described Canon’s 

new screen technology, 

SED, which 

promises to bring the advantages of 

cathode ray tubes to flat screens. Canon 

was actually showing an SED display, 

above right, and it is every bit as superb 

as I had hoped. The range of colors 

and luminosity is beyond anything I 

have ever seen before. Toshiba had the 

same demo, and promises the first SED 

displays for next year, at prices competitive 

with plasma, LCD and DLP. 

Toshiba and Canon have jointly set up 

a corporation, SED Inc. Is licensing in 

the works? 

What can you buy while you’re 

waiting? It would be easy to brush off 

Sharp as a company devoted to economy 

products, but its Aquos displays, shown 

at top right, were some of the very best 

ones at the show. Also superb were the 

displays from Toshiba, and that even 

included its LCD screens. Of course they 

were running HD DVD. 

Much less impressive were 

displays from Sony, once maker of the 

world’s best TV sets. Its LCD displays 

were especially mediocre, with a “screen 

door” effect clearly visible from what 

should have been a normal viewing 

distance. 

Oh well. Perhaps next year at 

this time we can put that behind us and 

pick up an SED display. And a Blu-Ray 

player. That would keep me contented 

for a good while.San vel dip.

Listening Feedback Room 

A final look… 

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et ver ipsusci liquisis non ullam dipsum zzrit 

nulputa tummolore dipisci blamcommod dolorpe rcincidunt 

accumsandio eum numsan ulluptat, verat nonsed et, secte molent 

ipit verci eum zzrit at. 

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quat. 

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eu facil iustin heniamcommod eril ent augait 

ad tin ullum do eraesto od tin ut er illumsan 

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tinci tisim quip eugiamconum vulla corem ex 

eniam, vel deliquis etuerat. Dui blaor sumsan 

henisi. 

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autatin henisl ea facin ut laoreet lum venis eraessim quamcon vent ea 

faci tatie tat dit ad dolore commodo consectem inim ero od magnit 

lortio od er sed min venibh ex esequis duisit landre vel ea feum ad 

dolorper iurem iuscinim quam veliquisi blandiam ipsum amcon utet 

veriure magna alit nostrud dolorer sumsand reetuer iuscil utatism 

odipit aute dunt lore delestio conse tat wis alis duisi. 

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et exero et, si. 

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volore molore feugiat. Lamet wisci tionsenibh et nostrud miniamc 

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non ero ex eu faci ex ex 

et, senit volorero estio 

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acing etum inciliquat. 

Ut vullum volorperci 

blam. 



Simaudio Moon W-8 

It seems just yesterday that Simaudio 

launched what was billed as 

the ultimate power amplifier, the 

W-5LE (“limited edition” — there 

were only 250 built). We reviewed it in 

UHF No. 70, and we were so impressed 

we bought it, to replace the older W-5 

in our Omega system. Albert Simon 

also got one. And it was just yesterday, 

some 18 months ago. So what is this new 

amplifier? 

To be fair, Simaudio president Jean 

Poulin had told us at the time that the 

W-5LE represented the pinnacle of 

what was possible with the original 

Renaissance circuit, introduced by 

founder Victor Sima with the original 

Celeste amplifiers. That seemed to hint 

at a totally new circuit topology, perhaps 

someday. But this soon? 

So here’s Simaudio’s new Evolution 

series, billed as an assault on the state of 

the art. The series includes a range of 

products that even include a CD player, 

all of them decidedly upmarket: weighty 

in both kilograms and dollars. The W-8 

is the first of them available in sufficient 

quantities to review. 

In a photograph the W-8 could be 

a slightly beefier version of the familiar 

W-5, albeit without the handles and with 

the heat sink fins turned the other way. 

In fact this is a larger amplifier, unable 

to fit under the equipment stand where 

our W-5LE lives comfortably. What’s 


more, if you try to lift it, it seems to be 

bolted to the floor. Like earlier models 

this one comes with screw-in spikes. 

Small floor protectors are also included, 

but sliding the amp on them even a little 

will damage them. 

We have longstanding misgivings 

about large power amplifiers, including 

the very expensive ones that Simaudio 

seems to be competing with by launching 

the W-8. Power is nice, and having 

too much of it would be like having too 

much happiness, but high power usually 

comes at a cost, especially in solid state 

amplifiers. These big amps, some of 

them actually apartment-sized, sound 

veiled at anything below full power 

(read: nearly all the time), with an opacity 

that delivers a lot of sound but not 

much music. There’s a reason for the 

current fad of expensive amps with tiny 

power outputs. We have always liked the 

W-5 amplifiers because they were such 

an evident exception to the rule. 

Still, Simaudio didn’t quite start 

with a clean sheet of paper, because 

its engineers learned a lot in the many 

refinements to the Renaissance circuit. 

The new “Lynx” topology shares some 

characteristics with its predecessor. 

For one thing it is a differential circuit, 

which means it amplifies the difference 

between the positive and negative parts 

of the signal. Thus balanced operation, 

via the XLR inputs, comes naturally, 

and not through the addition of an extra 

amplification stage. The new circuit also 

operates without an overall feedback 

loop, which brings part of the output 

signal back to the input to correct 

distortion. Only local feedback is 

used. As in the earlier designs, the 

output transistors are decoupled 

from each other. 

The build quality of the W-8 is 

impressive. The sculpted front panel 

has hardly any straight lines, and the 

four corner pillars give the structure 

great strength. That is needed in 

order to support the hefty power supply, 

which you can see in the picture on the 

next page. It contains two large toroidal 

power transformers, which account for a 

good part of the weight, and 240,000 µF 

of filter capacitors (the blue cylinders). 

The rear panel is fitted with first-class 

connectors, including four pairs of WBT 

binding posts, to make biwiring easier. 

You’ll find the usual 12 volt connections, 

to let a preamp control the amp 

for instance, and also an RS232 serial 

connector. This is a dying feature on 

personal computers, but it is widely used 

in complex home installations. 

If you use unbalanced cables (as we 

do, since our Copland preamp is not 

balanced), you leave in place the jumpers 

inserted into the XLR jacks, linking pins 

1 and 3, shorting out the unneeded negative 

input. On earlier Moon amplifiers, 

the shorting was done with a special plug 

inserted into a second RCA connector. 

You might prefer to see this done with 

a switch, but there is probably no way 

to add a switch without a performance 

hit. 

Though our W-8 had been broken 

in, it had also undergone an upgrade of 

its built-in firmware, and we thought it 

might be best to run some more hours 

on it. After that, we installed it in our 

Omega system, alongside our W-5LE, 

and pulled out some LPs we thought 

would be particularly revealing. 

The first was Wilson Audio’s longdiscontinued 

Center Stage, with John 

Williams’ stirring Olympic Fanfare (we 

had the session only a few days before the 

Turin Olympics). We like this recording 

because there is a lot happening at 

very low frequencies in this wind band 

recording, and reproducing it properly


requires precision and not merely brute 

force. 

Of course we wanted to see first of all 

whether the 50 watt power difference 

would be audible. It might be, 

but something else entirely 

caught our ears, the sheer 

size of everything. The huge 

space. And the convincing way 

the music expands to fill that 

space. 

And that’s in comparison with 

an amplifier that understands 

space, that has it hard-wired into 

its brain. 

Remember what we mentioned 

about big amps sounding veiled? Well, 

forget it. This is a very busy wind band 

recording, and what struck us from the 

very first was how much we could hear 

happening in the background even when 

the foreground was downright crowded. 

The cymbals, which Reine had found too 

forward, now sounded normal because 

we could hear through them. “This is 

quite a trick for a large amplifier,” commented 

Gerard. 

We continued with one of our favorite 

LPs, of William Walton’s tone poem 

Façade (Reference Recordings RR-16). 

This recording can be wonderful or 

nearly unbearable, depending on the 

usual factors. Were we right to expect 

that “wonderful” would be the more 

appropriate adjective? 

Yes indeed. The timbres of the 

varied solo instruments came through 

in impeccable form. Though this was 

generally true, we each noted particular 

instruments: the bewitching texture of 

the cello, the supple and ethereal piccolo, 

the warm bassoon, the realistic 

and attractive trumpet. As for the snare 

drum, which announces each change of 

tableaux, not only was it clean and clear, 

but it seemed to have added weight, the 

way a real snare might if it were brought 

into our listening room. 

All of this magic came with no down 

side. Depth was actually improved, and 

we could hear through a foreground 

instrument to hear one playing in the 

background. We had a joyous time. 

By now we had noticed that the W-8 

has little problem with extreme lows, and 

we were certain it would easily handle 

our next selection: Take the ‘A’ Train from 

the Ray 

B r o w n 

Tr io’s Soular 

E n e r g y a l b u m . 

What could possibly go 

wrong? 

Nothing did. From its first 

couple of notes Ray Brown’s thunderous 

bass picked up the rhythm and never let 

it go. Certain piano chords, which had 

sounded unnaturally hard with other 

amplifiers, now merely revealed the 

particular nature of the piano. “A piano 

expert could tell you the make,” commented 

Gerard. Reine was also struck 

by the difference in the piano. “It’s the 

same pianist, with the same piano and 

the same sound engineer,” she said, “and 

yet…” 

Transparence? The softly brushed 

snare, almost inaudible behind the bass 

and the piano, was always very much 

present. Perhaps it was just that we were 

noticing more differences, but the amplifier 

did seem to be getting better from 

one recording to the next. 

At some point, indeed, you start 

Summing it up… 

Brand/model: Simaudio Moon W-8 

Price: C$12,500/US$10,500 

Size (WDH): 47.5 x 41 x 18.5 cm 

Claimed power: 250 watts/channel 

Most liked: Power and transparency 

Least liked: Hot’n’heavy 

Verdict: The outside says Hummer, 

the sound says Porsche 

t h i n k i ng 

you’ve said 

it all, and you 

stop taking notes 

altogether. It was 

largely that way with 

Good Stuff from the Eric 

Bibb 45 rpm album of the 

same title (Opus 3 LP19603). 

Gerard noted only that at the very start 

there was a small background percussion 

instrument he had never heard before. 

There’s a lot on this recording, and we 

could finally hear it all. 

We had included the Eric Bibb 

recording because we didn’t want to 

evaluate the W-8 without hearing a 

human voice. But how would it do with 

a female voice? We pulled out a favorite 

CD, Margie Gibson’s wonderfully 

emotional Say It With Music (Sheffield 

CD36). We chose a long-time favorite, 

I Got Lost in His Arms. 

Once again our notes were sparse. “I 

got lost in the song,” said Gerard. 

The differences? “She bought a 

better microphone,” suggested Albert, 

noting that her sometimes difficult “S” 

sounds were more natural. The trailing 

syllables of very softly-enunciated words 

were never less than clear. But there was 

more here than sound. This song packs 

an emotional charge, and we could not 

only hear it but feel it. 

We were curious as to how the W-8 

would measure on our test bench, but how 

could we measure an amplifier this size? 

We couldn’t check the maximum power 

output because our large and expensive 

dummy loads stop 50 watts short of the 



rated power (we had never needed more 

than that before). Besides, our ears had 

told us what we wanted to know. Instead 

we had a look at its behavior at very low 

levels, just a few thousandths of a watt 

above silence. Impeccable…how could it 

be otherwise? 

Even measuring 

residual noise was 

a challenge, since 

we couldn’t actually 

use 250 watts 

as a reference level. 

Instead we made 

the measurements 

10 dB below t he 

200 watt full power 

level. The resulting 

curve is shown on 

this page. The real 

noise curve is 10 dB 

better than shown. 

Hum is 111 dB down, and even the worst 

noise peak (whose nature is uncertain) is 

-98 dB. Above 5 kHz, where our graph 

ends, the noise actually dips lower. 

Now came an important discussion. 

The day before this review, we 

had been discussing the possibility of 

upgrading the Alpha system by finally 

changing its power amplifier. We had 

talked about different possibilities, 

including possibly a tube amplifier. Heat 

would be a problem, but perhaps that 

could be manageable. 

But by the end of this session the 

solution was clear. We would move our 

W-5LE to the Alpha system, where it 

would make a major splash. The W-8 

would replace it in the Omega system. 

The number of readers who will 

follow our example will be necessarily 

small. The difference in price between 

the W-8 and the still superb W-5 (the 

Limited Edition or the plain vanilla) is 

not be tossed off lightly. Besides, few 

systems are good enough to reveal the 

differences. 

However, if your system and your 

budget can handle this amplifier, be sure 

you lend it an ear. 

CROSSTALK 

I have to admit I came to this session 

prepared to dislike this amplifier. True, 

Simaudio had scored a long list of winners, 

but all of them were based on the original 

Renaissance design. When it did wander 

elsewhere, as it did with the Moon Rock, 

for instance, it lost me. A bigger, more 

powerful, much more expensive amplifier? 

Simaudio was obviously going after You 

Know Who. Bummer! 

Well, no, I was wrong. It is clear that 

the people at Simaudio have learned an important 

lesson from the evolution of products 

such as the W-5: how to listen. When 

Simaudio’s Costa Koulisakis told me about 

how they did the voicing of the W-8, I 

understood. They put in all the tech tricks 

they had learned, and then they listened 

and listened again. 

The triumph that the W-8 represents 

should not be underestimated. I have always 

thought that the W-5, in its many 

incarnations, was about as good as a large 

solid state amp could possibly get. To hear 

it bested so convincingly is sobering. And it 

is exhilarating 

The W-8 does loud stuff well, but then 

you expect that from an amplifier it takes 

two people to lift. Listen to the way it does 

soft stuff. 

—Gerard Rejskind 

A certain weariness envelops me. It’s 

been a long day, and it would normally be 

quitting time. Supper is waiting. How am 

I going to do justice to this amplifier, the 

final product in this long test series? 

Let me reassure you, because I came out 

of the session rested and of good cheer. What 

a terrific time! Here let me sum it up in upper 

case and bold letters: PERFECTION! 

Not that we weren’t happy with our 

W-5LE, but the W-8 goes even further, 

multiplying the qualities that were already 

present in our own amplifier. Were? Did I 

just put that in the past tense? Or was I expressing 

a hope? 

Let me go into particulars. 

The space seems to expend generously 

in all directions, the spectral balance is perfect, 

the clarity is incomparable, the sound 

is exquisite, details arrive in quantity, 

counterpoints are so clear you can walk into 

the music and follow each melody. What 

can I say about those warm and natural 

timbres? About smooth woodwinds, about 

scintillating brass that is never strident, 

about a plucked bass that exhibits even the 

most ethereal of inflections, about moving 

human voices, about percussion that alternates 

between subtle and energetic, about 

bass drums that are overwhelming and 

snares that are snazzy? There’s liveliness, 

energy and good humor, and you become a 

part of the music. 

I’m stunned by this perfection, and it 

leads me to the conclusion that there are 

designers and manufacturers who are not 

prepared to sit on their laurels. So much the 

better for us. 

This Moon is a titan! 

—Reine Lessard 

How do you transform a listening experience 

when you thought you had it just 

right? How can the space open up between 

and around the speakers, letting musicians 

and vocalists step through it — giving the 

word “transparent” its true meaning? 

You're going to have to ask the folks at 

Simaudio. Or better still, why don't you 

pretend all I said is just an exaggerated reaction 

to a new, heftier model and go experience 

it for yourself? Just check it out. 

Locate a friendly and passionate dealer, and 

bring along a couple of CDs, one featuring 

a soft, intimate recording and the other a 

powerful performance. 

If at all possible, haul in your own power 

amp to use as your reference and have a first 

listen (I can just see friendly and passionate 

dealers hurling old UHF copies at me.) 

Then, let them replace it with the W-8 

and go over your CD selections again. Say 

nothing, just listen. And here is the final 

test: see if you can pry yourself from your 

listening seat, in full view, while the performers 

are there, watching you. 

—Albert Simon 


THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION: 

Issues No.7-19 (except 11, 15, 17 and 18, out of 

print): nine issues available for the price of five 

(see below). A piece of audio history. Available 

separately at the regular price. 

No.74: Lots of amplifiers: The Mimetism 15.2, 

Qinpu A-8000, Raysonic SP-100, Cyrus 8vs 

and Rogue Stereo 90. More reviews: Atlantis 

Argentera speaker, Cyrus CD8X player, GutWire 

MaxCon Squared line filter, Harmonic remote, 

Music Studio 10 recording software. Cables: 

Atlas, Stager, BIS and DNM, including a look 

at how length affects digital cables. Plus: the 

(high fidelity) digital jukebox, why HDTV doesn’t 

always mean what you think, and Reine Lessard 

on The Man Who Invented Rock’n’Roll. 

No.73: Integrated amplifiers: The superlative 

Audiomat Récital and the affordable but highly 

musical Exposure 2010S. Analog: Turntables 

from Roksan (the Radius 5) and Goldring (the 

Rega-designed GR2), plus two phono cartridges, 

and four phono stages from CEC, Marchand 

and Goldring. More reviews: The legendary 

Harmonix Reimyo CD player, the Audiomat 

Maestro DAC, the ASW Genius 400 speakers, 

and the Sonneteer BardOne wireless system. 

Plus: Paul Bergman on the making of an LP and 

why they don’t all sound the same, the many 

ways of compressing video so it looks (almost) 

like film, news from Montreal 2005, and the story 

of the accordion. 

No.72: Music from data: We look at ways you 

can make your own audiophile CDs with equipment 

you already have, and we test a DAC that 

yields hi-fi from your computer or iPod. We 

review the new Audio Reference speakers, the 

updated Connnoisseur single-ended tube amp, 

some upscale Actinote cables, and Gershman’s 

Acoustic Art panels. We tell you how to tune up 

your system for an inexpensive performance 

boost. And much more. 

No.71: Three small speaker: Reference 3a 

Dulcet, Totem Rainmaker, and a very low cost but 

surprising speaker from France. We do a complex 

blind cable test: five cables from Atlas, and 

one Wireworld cable with different connectors 

(Eichmann, WBT nextgen, and Wireworld). The 

McCormack UDP-1 universal player, muRata 

super tweeters, the Simaudio I-3 amp and 

Equinox CD player. Paul Bergman reveals the 

philosophical differences behind two-channel 

stereo and multichannel. 

No.70: How SACD won the war…or how DVD-A 

blew it. Reviews: Linn Unidisk 1.1 universal 

player and Shanling SCD-T200 player. Speakers: 

Reference 3a Royal Virtuoso, Equation 25, 

Wilson Benesch Curve, preview of muRata 

super tweeters. Other reviews: Simaudio W- 

5LE amp, the iPod as an audiophile source. 

Plus: future video screens, the eternal music 

of George Gershwin, and two reports from 

Montréal 2004. 

No.69: Tube Electronics: Audiomat Opéra , 

Connoisseur SE-2 and Copland CSA29 integrated 

amps, and Shanling SP-80 monoblocks. 

Also: Audiomat's Phono-1.5, Creek CD50, as 

well as a great new remote control, GutWire's 

NotePad antivibration device, and a musicrelated 

computer game that had us laughing out 

loud. Paul Bergman on the return of the vacuum 

tube, and how music critics did their best to kill 

the world’s greatest music. 

No.68: Loudspeakers: Thiel CS2.4, Focus 

Audio FS688, Iliad B1. Electronics:Vecteur 

I-6.2 and Audiomat Arpège integrated amplifiers, 

Copland 306 multichannel tube preamp, 

Rega Fono MC. Also: Audio Note and Copland 

CD players, GutWire MaxCon power filter. And 

there’s more: all about power supplies, what’s 

coming beyond DVD, and a chat with YBA’s 

Yves-Bernard André. 

No.67: Loudspeakers: A new, improved 

Reference 3a MM de Capo, and the awesome 

Living Voice Avatar OBX-R. Centre speakers 

for surround from Castle, JMLab, ProAc, Thiel, 

Totem and Vandersteen. One of them joins our 

Kappa system. Two multichannel amps from 

Copland and Vecteur. Plus: plans for a DIY 

platform for placing a centre speaker atop any TV 

set, Paul Bergman on the elements of acoustics, 

and women in country music. 

No.66: Reviews: the Jadis DA-30 amplifier, the 

Copland 305 tube preamp and 520 solid state 

amp. Plus: the amazing Shanling CD player, 

Castle Stirling speakers, and a remote control 

that tells you what to watch. Also: Bergman on 

biwiring and biamplification, singer Janis Ian’s 

alternative take on music downloading, and a 

chat with Opus 3’s Jan-Eric Persson. 

No.65: Back to Vinyl: setting up an analog 

system, reviews of Rega P9 turntable, and 

phono preamps from Rega, Musical Fidelity and 

Lehmann. The Kappa reference system for home 

theatre: how we selected our HDTV monitor, plus 

a review of the Moon Stellar DVD player. Antivibration: 

Atacama, Symposium, Golden Sound, 

Solid-Tech, Audioprism, Tenderfeet. Plus an 

interview with Rega’s turntable designer, and a 

look back at what UHF was like 20 years ago. 

No.64: Speakers: Totem M1 Signature and 

Hawk, Visonik E352. YBA Passion Intégré amp, 

Cambridge IsoMagic (followup), better batteries 

for audio-to-go. Plus: the truth about upsampling, 

an improvement to our LP cleaning machine, an 

interview with Ray Kimber. 

. 

No.63: Tube amps: ASL Leyla & Passion 

A11. Vecteur Espace speakers, 2 interconnects 

(Harmonic Technology Eichmann), 

5 speaker cables (Pierre Gabriel, vdH , 

Harmonic Technology, Eichmann), 4 power 

cords (Wireworld, Harmonic Technology, 

Eichmann, ESP). Plus: Paul Bergman on 

soundproofing, how to compare components 

in the store, big-screen TV’s to stay away 

from, a look back at the Beatles revolution. 

No.62: Amplifiers: Vecteur I-4, Musical Fidelity 

Nu-Vista M3, Antique Sound Lab MG-S11DT. 

Passive preamps from Creek and Antique Sound 

Lab. Vecteur L-4 CD player. Interconnects: VdH 

Integration and Wireworld Soltice. Plus: the right 

to copy music, and how it may be vanishing. 

Choosing a DVD player by features. And all about 

music for the movies. 

No.61: Digital: Audiomat Tempo and Cambridge 

Isomagic DACs, Vecteur D-2 transport. Speakers: 

Osborn Mini Tower and Mirage OM-9. Soundcare 

Superspikes. And: new surround formats, dezoning 

DVD players. 

No.60: Speakers: Monitor Audio Silver 9, 

Reference 3a MM De Capo, Klipsch RB-5, 

Coincident Triumph Signature. Plus: a Mirage 

subwoofer and the Audiomat Solfège amp. Paul 

Bergman on reproducing extreme lows. 

No.59: CD players: Moon Eclipse, Linn Ikemi and 

Genki, Rega Jupiter/Io, Cambridge D500. Plus: 

Oskar Kithara speaker, with Heil tweeter. And: 

transferring LP to CD, the truth on digital radio, 

digital cinema vs MaxiVision 48. 

No.58: Amplifiers: ASL AQ1003, Passion I10 

& I11, Rogue 88, Jadis Orchestra Reference, 

Linar 250. Headphone amps: Creek, Antique 

Sound Lab, NVA, Audio Valve. Plus: Foundation 

Research LC-2 line filter, Gutwire power cord, 

Back Issues 

Pierre Gabriel ML-1 2000 cable. And: building 

your own machine to clean LP’s. 

No.57: Speakers: Dynaudio Contour 1.3, 

Gershman X-1/SW-1, Coincident Super Triumph 

Signature, Castle Inversion 15, Oskar Aulos. 

PLUS: KR 18 tube amp. Music Revolution: the 

next 5 years. Give your Hi-Fi a Fall Tune-Up. 

No.56: Integrated amps: Simaudio I-5, Roksan 

Caspian, Myryad MI120, Vecteur Club 10, NVA 

AP10 Also: Cambridge T500 tuner, Totem Forest. 

Phono stages: Creek, Lehmann, Audiomat. 

Interconnects: Actinote, Van den Hul, Pierre 

Gabriel. Plus: Paul Bergman on power and current…why 

you need both 

No.55: CD players: Linn CD12, Copland CDA- 

289, Roksan Caspian, AMC CD8a. Other 

reviews: Enigma Oremus speaker, Magenta 

ADE-24 black box. Plus: the DSD challenge for 

the next audio disc, pirate music on the Net, the 

explosion of off-air video choices. 

No.54: Electronics: Creek A52se, Simaudio 

W-3 and W-5 amps. Copland CSA-303, Sima 

P-400 and F.T. Audio preamps (the latter two 

passive). Musical Fidelity X-DAC revisited, Ergo 

AMT phones, 4 line filters, 2 interconnects. Plus: 

Making your own CD’s. 

No.53: Loudspeakers:Reference 3a Intégrale, 

Energy Veritas v2.8, Epos ES30, Totem Shaman, 

Mirage 390is, Castle Eden. Plus: Paul Bergman 

on understanding biamping, biwiring, balanced 

lines, and more. 

No.52: CD players: Alchemist Nexus, Cambridge 

CD6, YBA Intégré, Musical Fidelity X-DAC, 

Assemblage DAC-2. Subwoofers: Energy ES-8 

and NHT PS-8. Plus: Paul Bergman on reproducing 

deep bass, Vegas report, and the story 

behind digital television. 

No.51: Integrated amps: YBA Intégré DT, 

Alchemist Forseti, Primare A-20, NVA AP50 

Cambridge A1. CD players: Adcom GCD-750, 

Rega Planet. An economy system to recommend 

to friends, ATI 1505 5-channel amp, Bergman on 

impedance, why connectors matter, making your 

own power bars. 

No.50: CD: Cambridge DiscMagic/DACMagic, 

Primare D-20, Dynaco CDV Pro. Analog: Rega 

Planar 9, Linn LP12 after 25 years. Also: Moon 

preamp, Linn Linto phono stage, Ergo and Grado 

headphones. Speaker cables: Linn K-400, 

Sheffield, MIT 750 Also: 15 years of UHF. 

No.49: Power amps: Simaudio Moon, Bryston 

3B ST, N.E.W. DCA-33, plus the Alchemist 

Forseti amp and preamp, and the McCormack 

Micro components. Also: our new Reference 3a 

Suprema II reference speakers, and a followup 

on the Copland 277 CD player. Plus: how HDCD 

really works. 

No.48: Loudspeakers: JMLabs Daline 3.1, 

Vandersteen 3a, Totem Tabù, Royd Minstrel. 

CD: Cambridge CD4, Copland CDA-277. Also: 

An interview with the founder of a Canadian 

audiophile record label. 

No.47: FM tuners: Magnum Dynalab MD-108, 

Audiolab 8000T, Fanfare FT-1. Speaker cables: 

QED Qudos, Wireworld Equinox and Eclipse, 

MIT MH-750. Parasound C/BD-2000 transport 

and D/AC-2000 converter. And: Upgrading your 

system for next to nothing. 

No.46: Electronics: Simaudio 4070SE amp & 

P-4002 preamp, Copland CTA-301 & CTA-505, 

N.E.W. P-3 preamp. Digital cables: Wireworld, 

Audiostream, MIT, XLO, Audioprism, and 

Wireworld’s box for comparing interconnects. 

Also: YBA CD-1 and Spécial CD players. Yves- 

Bernard André talks about about his blue diode 

CD improvement. 

No.45: Integrated amps: Copland CTA-401, 

Simaudio 4070i, Sugden Optima 140. CD: 

Adcom GDA-700 HDCD DAC, Sonic Frontiers 

SFD-1 MkII. Interconnects: Straight Wire 

Maestro, 3 versions of Wireworld Equinox. 

Plus: Yamamura Q15 CD oil, and “Hi-Fi for the 

Financially Challenged”. 

No.44: Digital: Rotel RCD970BX, Counterpoint 

DA-10A DAC. Speakers: Apogee Ribbon Monitor, 

Totem Mite, more on the Gershman Avant Garde. 

Also: Laser-Link cable, “The Solution” CD treatment, 

AudioQuest sorbothane feet, Tenderfeet, 

Isobearings. Plus: Inside Subwoofers, and 

the castrati, the singers who gave their all for 

music. 

No.43: The first HDCD converter: the EAD 

DSP-1000 MkII. Speakers: Gershman Avant 

Garde, Totem Mani-2 and Rokk, Quad ESL-63 

with Gradient subwoofer. Plus: Keith O. Johnson 

explains the road to HDCD, and our editor joins 

those of other magazines to discuss what’s 

hot in audio. 

No.42: Electronics: Spectral DMC-12 and Celeste 

P-4001 preamplifiers, amps and preamps from 

Duson. Also: Sonic Frontiers SFD-1 converter, 

power line filters from Audioprism, Chang, and 

YBA. Plus: Inside the preamplifier, and how the 

tango became the first “dirty” dance. 

No.41: Digital: Roksan DA-2, EAD DSP-7000, 

McCormack DAC-1, QED Ref. Digit. Cables: 

Straight Wire LSI Encore & Virtuoso, Wireworld 

Equinox, van den Hul The 2nd & Revelation, 

Cardas Cross & Hexlink Golden, Transparent 

Music-Link Super & Music-Wave Super. Plus: 

Bergman on recording stereo. 

No.40: Integrated amps: YBA Intégré, Rotel 960, 

Sugden A-25B, Sima PW-3000, Linn Majik, Naim 

NAIT 3, AMC CVT3030, Duson PA-75. Stereo: 

what it is, how it works, why it’s disappearing 

from records. 

No. 39: Speakers: KEF Q50, Martin-Logan 

Aerius, Castle Howard, NEAR 40M, Klipsch 

Kg4.2. Plus: QED passive preamps, followup 

on the Linn Mimik CD player. 

No. 38: CD players: Roksan Attessa, Naim CDS, 

Linn Mimik, Quad 67, Rotel 945, Micromega 

Model “T”. Plus: How the record industry will 

wipe out hi-fi, and why women have been erased 

from music history. 

No.37: Electronics: Celeste 4070 and McIntosh 

7150 amps, Linn Kairn and Klout. Plus: 

RoomTunes acoustic treatment, why all amps 

don’t sound alike, and how Pro Logic really 

works. 

No.36: CD players: YBA CD-2, Linn Karik/ 

Numerik, Sugden SDT-1, Mission DAD5 /DAC5, 

Audiolab 8000DAC, QED Digit, Nitty Gritty LP 

cleaner, An interview with Linn’s Ivor Tiefenbrun, 

and part 7 of Bergman on acoustics: building your 

own acoustical panels. 

SOLD OUT 

No.35: Speakers: Castle Chester, Mirage M-7si, 

Totem Model 1, Tannoy 6.1, NHT 2.3, 3a Micro 

Monitor, Rogers LS2a/2. Plus: Tests of high end 

video recorders, hi-fi stereo recordings of piano 

performances of 75 years ago. Acoustics part 6: 

Conceiving the room. 

To see a list of older issues: 

http://www.uhfmag.com/Individualissue.html 

EACH ISSUE costs $6.49 (in Canada) plus tax (15.03% in Québec, 15% in NB, NS and NF, 7% in other Provinces), US$6.49 in the USA, CAN$10.75 elsewhere (air mail 

included). THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION (issues 7-19 except 11, 15, 17 and 18) includes 9 issues but costs like 5. For VISA or MasterCard, include your number, 

expiry date and signature. UHF Magazine, Box 65085, Place Longueuil, Longueuil, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4. Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383. Order on line at 

www.uhfmag.com. Recent back issues are available electronically at www.magzee.com, for C$4.30 each, all taxes included.


Copland CTA-405 

This Danish company is 

capable of the best and the 

worst. The best is, in our 

view, the CTA-305 tube preamplifier. 

It’s so good we actually own 

two of them, which are in our Alpha and 

Omega systems. It’s not that we wanted 

to have identical preamps. Indeed, we 

would have been happier spreading the 

joy around a little. However we were not 

prepared to spend double or triple for 

less. Copland knows how to build the 

best at a price. 

The worst, however, can be very bad. 

In the last while we’ve reviewed a solid 

state integrated amp and a five-channel 

power amp with the Copland name, and 

wondered how Olé Möller can possibly 

have let them out of his factory. 

But let’s hearken back to a happier 

time. It was exactly ten years ago. On the 

cover of UHF No. 45 was a large integrated 

amplifier, cover off, output tubes 

blazing. It was a Copland CT-401, and 

the afternoon we spent with it was one of 

those times you don’t ever forget. Very 

simply, we got lost in the music (that’s a 

quote from Albert, actually). Reine had 

said she was ready to give it an A+ from 

the first notes she had heard. 

Nor was that all. On that particular 

day we had invited a guest who joined 

our panelists for the session, and he had 

been every bit as taken with the Copland. 

“A year from now,” he had said at the end, 

“I’m going to own one of those.” 

Alas, no. For reasons best known 

to him, Möller discontinued the 401. 

Did he think audiophiles wouldn’t buy 

an amplifier with so little power (30 

watts per channel claimed, less in real 

life)? Whatever the reason, we’ve long 

hoped for the return of this astonishing 

amplifier. 

It’s now done, and Möller has added a 

twist. He knows how good his CTA-305 

preamplifier is, so he incorporated a 305 

right in the integrated. 

Yes it’s the same. Even its excellent 

phono stage is included. The price is 

higher than that of the 401 a decade ago 

(duh!), but it doesn’t cost that much more 

than a 305 preamp alone. The claimed 

power is up, from 30 watts per channel 

to 50, obtained from two pairs of 6550 

tubes. 

The 405 also includes what we consider 

the 305 preamp’s major flaw: its 

autom at ic 

shutdown feat 

u re. T he u n it 

shuts off its own power 

after something like seven 

hours. We don’t much like 

this, since we run our gear all 

the time, but we could put up with it 

if the timing cycle began when the last 

signal was sensed, or even the last time 

the unit received a command from the 

remote control. But no, it shuts off seven 

hours after the last time it was powered up! 

This made breaking in the 405 a lot of 

fun. 

There is a workaround, fortunately. 

The distributor, Divergent Technologies, 

gave us a new control chip that doesn’t 

include auto shutoff, and will do the same 

free on request for buyers of either the 

preamp or the 405 integrated. We think 

it should be done on all units unless the 

buyer wants the shutoff (yeah, right), but 

at least there’s a fix. 

The 405 uses the same remote control 

as the preamp, as do the Copland 

CD players. Since the preamp section is 

the same so are the functions: an MM 

phono input, and four high-level inputs 

plus the tape loop. 

We have often complained about the 

so-so phono jacks on the preamp. On the 

305 Copland used better jacks for the 

main output, but oddly not for any of the 

inputs. In the 405 the same jacks are used 

everywhere, and since they are chassis-mount 

types they are exceedingly 

difficult to change. Paradoxically, the 

output binding posts are much better: 

they’re from WBT. 



There are, as on 

most tube amps, binding posts 

for both 4 ohm and 8 ohm connections. 

The 8 ohm may well sound better regardless 

of the impedance of your speakers. 

There are no balanced inputs. Though 

the 405 is more interesting with its cover 

off, as in our photographs, running it 

that way exposes lethal voltages. 

The engraving on the rear panel 

indicates that the amplifier inverts phase: 

that is, when the voltage at the input is 

positive, the voltage at the output post is 

negative. This is easy to fix by reversing 

speaker cables of course, but Copland 

says future units will be non-inverting. 

After a break-in period (which 

required lots of shutting down and 

restarting for reasons already mentioned), 

we took the Copland into our 

Alpha room, along with a handful of 

challenging recordings. 

We know you’ve been looking forward 

to this review, but we're sad to tell 

you that it is available only on the paid 

version of UHF…either the printed edition, 

or the electronic edition. Both are 

available through our Web site, at www. 

uhfmag.com 

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Brand/model: Copland CTA-405 

Price: C$4500 

Dimensions: 43 x 38.8 x 18.5 cm 


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CEC 5400 Amplifier 

The CEC brand is not exactly 

new to us. We reviewed this 

Japanese company’s DA53 

digital-to-analog converter 

in UHF No. 72 (that, you may recall, was 

the one with the USB input so it could 

handle the digital signal from a computer). 

And we own one of the company’s 

famous belt-drive CD transports, the 

TL51X. You say the company builds 

amplifiers too? 

And this amplifier’s specs demand 

attention. What we have here is an integrated 

amp claiming 100 watt/channel in 

pure class A, with a price tag way below 

$2K in Canada, even less in the US. We 

double checked the rear panel in case it 

read made in China, but it doesn’t. In high 

end circles, this is economy territory. 

This is a full-featured amplifier, 

with remote control (the volume knob is 

motorized), and four inputs plus a tape 

loop. At the rear is a large heat sink — or 

at least large in comparison to the amplifier 

itself — to dissipate the heat from 

the class A output circuit. The other 

news is not so good. The input jacks 

are no better than mediocre, which you 

expect in this price range, but the output 

binding posts are worse. That you don’t 

expect. 

Indeed they’re not binding posts at 

all, though they look as though they are. 

They are spring-loaded to hold a bare 

wire, like those dreadful guillotine connectors 

in mid-fi gear. The only saving 

grace is that there’s a hole at the rear for 

a banana, though they’re a bit loose with 

most bananas even so. We consider the 

5400 conditionally acceptable: you need 


to use bananas with it. Or else change 

the posts and hang the warranty. 

You’ll probably notice the presence 

of four XLR connectors at the rear. 

Oddly enough, CEC gives you little 

choice about what you use. The CD and 

Aux 2 inputs are accessible only through 

the balanced XLR connectors, whereas 

the Tuner and Aux 1 inputs are strictly 

unbalanced coaxial. You can, of course, 

fit a coaxial cable with an XLR connector 

(pins 1 and 3 grounded, pin 2 hot), but 

high quality interconnects don’t come 

that way. The tape loop is strictly coaxial. 

We realize there wouldn’t be room for 

any more connectors on the rear panel, 

but even so the mix is unexpected. 

Like most modern integrated amplifiers, 

the 5400 is remote-controlled. 

However the volume control is not the 

usual motorized potentiometer. CEC 

uses what it calls Intelligent Gain Management, 

which means that the volume 

control actually changes the amount of 

amplification, instead of simply turning 

unwanted energy into heat. CEC claims 

this results in lower noise when the 

volume is turned down. 

Because the 5400 is not especially 

large you figure it also won’t be heavy, 

but you’d be wrong. Carrying it means 

positioning it close to your body, the 

way you do when you carry a muscle 

amp. And you do it with the top panel 

against your chest, so that the support 

cones don’t hit an artery. It would be a 

dumb way to die. 

We set up the 5400 in our Alpha 

system and listened to the same set 

of recordings used with the previous 

amplifier reviewed. The first: Ghosts 

from the album of the same title (Klavier 

K11150). This is a recording with a lot of 

energy behind it, and we knew it would 

require all of the power CEC claims to 

have packed into this small but weighty 

chassis. 

And it got off to a good start. From 

the dark theme that opens this wind 

band suite we were struck by the coherence 

and the clarity of the sound. The 

instruments didn’t blend together, as 

they might have. The sound of the 

ghostly chains was interesting, and it 

really did seem to emerge from way out 

there. The louder section — and it does 

get loud! — hung together well, confirming 

from the first that this amplifier 

isn’t likely to run out of breath. 

Not that it sounded really like our 

reference. The tone was pleasant but 

different. The bottom end had a little 

less body, but it was impressive all the 

same. So far so good. 

The CEC had little more difficulty 

with the huge organ chords of the Bach 

Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (from 

Organ Treasures, Opus 3 CD22031). If 

the body of the organ seemed thinner, 

it was barely noticeable. The depth was 

well rendered. The opening segment had 

impressive majesty. 

Actually, it was the higher-pitched 

pipes that seemed less plausible. Their 

tone was fine, and there was no confusion 

or granularity, but the music was 

less moving. Yes, we were asking a lot! 

“At this price I have no complaints,” said 

Reine. 

The CEC also did surprisingly 

well with the organ in Antiphone Blues 

(FIM CD003). There was a little less of 

everything, but only a little. There was 

a little less space, but it remained wide 

and deep. The saxophone was a little 

less smooth, but Reine called it superb. 

The organ…well, it still had most of 

its power, something you can’t take for 

granted with a small amplifier, especially 

an inexpensive one. The image was welldefined, 

and it was stable too. 

Our high definition disc (Trio, on a 

24/96 DVD, Hi-Res HRM2008) was 

a major challenge for this amplifier, 

because it has outsized dynamics and a 

rare richness of detail. The CEC took 

it on with sure-footed assurance. The


image was slightly less convincing, but 

it was stable. Ray Brown’s bass didn’t 

have its customary horsepower, though 

the overall balance was plausible for 

anyone not making comparisons, as we 

were. The guitar and piano sounded 

gorgeous, though, without confusion or 

graininess. 

We keep coming back to this matter 

of graininess. It’s significant for not 

being there, like the dogs that didn’t bark 

in The Hounds of the Baskervilles. 

We ended with Margie Gibson’s Say 

It With Music album of Irving Berlin 

favorites (Sheffield CD-36). The song 

sounded different, but we couldn’t say 

we were disappointed by what we heard. 

The piano was a little thinner, and that 

was certainly the case of the cello and the 

plucked bass, but their overall balance 

was pleasing. As for Gibson’s moving 

voice, it survived well, still lyrical and 

emotional. The essentials were all present 

and accounted for. 

We took the CEC into the lab, to 

see whether its surprising specifications 

might be more than just smoke. And 

speaking of smoke… 

It was our own damn fault. On the 

power measurement we made it to 100 

watts with no problem, and began closing 

in on what our forensic team would 

later determine to be 112 watts. Then 

the protection circuit kicked in. This 

isn’t a breaker or a fuse, as on most amps. 

Rather, a circuit detects the overload and 

turns down the volume knob until the 

overload has cleared. At least it does if the 

tester doesn’t have his hand on the knob! 

You guessed it. We blew the channel, 

as the helpful red “error” light helpfully 

let us know. Nor did it change its mind. 

A long rest did not lead to recovery. 

Good thing we did the measurements 

after we had completed the listening 

session! That probably wouldn’t happen 

in anything but a test situation. 


Brand/model: CEC AMP5400 

Price: C$1690/US$1490 

Size (WDH): 43.5 x 34 x 10.5 cm 


Inputs: 4 high level plus tape loop 

Most liked: Great dynamics, fine 

clarity 

Least liked: Hideous output connectors 

Verdict: The quantity’s good, but so 

is the quality 

That meant the rest of our usual 

tests had to be done on the remaining 

channel. The noise curve is shown on 

this page. Hum (below 100 watts, not 

112!) is higher than we had expected but 

still inaudible, at 79 dB below full level, 

but hiss and other noise hover around 

-110 dB. Low-level behavior was excellent. 

Crosstalk between adjacent channels 

was an insignificant -78 dB (right 

around the hum level in fact) at 1 kHz, 

and a still excellent -68 dB at worst (with 

a 10 kHz signal). 

A nice product, this amplifier. Listen 

to it alongside the best of the affordable 

integrated amplifiers that might be on 

your list, and you’ll find it keeps up with 

them. It might even chase one or more 

of them right off the list. 

CROSSTALK 

Even in comparison with our reference, 

this integrated amplifier seems very interesting. 

I noted no important faults, and on 

the contrary its assets are several. 

For example, it projects good depth, 

with a comfortable space all around, and 

a highly satisfactory image that provides 

room for all the tiny information true 

audiophiles want to have. The dynamic 

range is very good, the bottom end is ample 

and solid, reproduction is powerful, and 

timbres are as pleasant as they are natural. 

On some fast pieces the rhythm is somewhat 

attenuated, and on complex organ 

passages the varied stops and textures are 

less clear than they should be, but singing 

voices are warm, lyrics clear, and tiny inflexions 

that are either distorted or left out 

by lesser amplifiers, are unscathed. Certain 

pieces are hugely enjoyable. The sax, the 

trombone and the clarinet emerge intact, 

with proper balance, and it’s all musical. 

This amplifier is so talented you’d have 

to figure it costs a small fortune, and it’s 

a surprise when you find out what it does 

cost. It’s a good investment for an audiophile 

either starting out or upgrading. And 

think of the space saving over separates! 

—Reine Lessard 

Do all amplifiers in this price range 

sound this good? I wish! I’ve heard enough 

of them that sounded…well, suffice it to say 

it felt good when I turned them off. Have I 

been guilty of going too easy on them? Yes. 

I should have come down on them with the 

full weight of my wrath! 

This amp is value for money. You give 

up minor sonic aspects, and not as many as 

you would think, but you don’t give up the 

music. And you never worry about whether 

the chassis will burst open if you edge the 

volume up any more. 

But…better connectors, please! 

—Gerard Rejskind 

This test began with a feeling of surprise 

(a very happy surprise), and it lasted 

throughout the listening test. I kept trying 

to find something obviously unusual about 

the sound, something that would explain 

where the designer had compromised, 

where the manufacturer had to say “stop or 

we're going to have to raise the price,” but I 

couldn’t. 

I knew the sound was not as full-bodied 

as with our reference, nor as naturally 

warm, but it was always steady, solid and 

musical. It thrilled me with the sense of 

depth it created and with its ability to remain 

transparent under the most trying 

passages. 

It took anything we wanted to hear and 

gave us a great rendition. I should have 

guessed when I first lifted it, feeling its 

surprisingly heavy weight and noticing its 

superb finish. Whether you’re taking your 

first steps on the audiophile trails or whether 

you've already gone through your first 

pair of boots, this amplifier is an amazing 

value. 

—Albert Simon 


THE UHF CLASSIFIEDS 

Run your own ad in the print issue, and on our World Wide Web site for two months 

NON-COMMERCIAL: $12 per slice of 40 words or less. COMMERCIAL: $24 per slice of 40 words or less. 

TAXES: In most of Canada, add 7% GST. NS, NB, NF, add 15% HST. In Québec, add another 7.5% TVQ. No taxes for advertisers outside Canada. 

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Prices shown in Canadian dollars. THE UHF CLASSIFIEDS, Box 65085, Place Longueuil, LONGUEUIL, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4 

PHONE: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383. E-MAIL: uhfmail@uhfmag.com 

DENON 3910 

Denon mid-fi? Not when www.partsconnexion.com 

has done its magic (full Level II upgrade) to this 

universal player’s audio section, easily making it 

comparable to $10,000 players (and of course the 

video output is Denon-famous...iincomparable). 

Enjoythemusic.com thought very highly of the 

upgraded Denon 5900 but parsconnexion says the 

3910 lends itself to an even bettr upgrade/player. 

Circumstances force me to sacrifice this barely 

broken-in beauty for the cost of the upgrade alone, 

in essence making the player free! (514)942-3789, 

davidmtl2003@yahoo.ca. 

YBA ONE AMPLIFIER 

Yes, this is UHF's own amplifier from the Alpha 

reference system. It's nearly 16 years old, but 

in December 2002 it was completely rebuilt, to 

become an Alpha HC (high current) model. It is in 

excellent condition, with tiny marks from handling. 

The rear has banana-only outputs connectors, 

and there are small holes where the old circuit 

breakers once were. Originally $9000, available 

for $3450 plus shipping. Call UHF (450-651-5720) 

during EST business hours or uhfmail@uhfmag. 

com. 

AESTHETIX PREAMP 

Aesthetix Saturn Calypso all-tube preamplifier. 

Rave review in The Absolute Sound (issue 151), 

Product of the Year, also in TAS. Class A in 

Stereophile, rave review in July 2005. Absolutely 

mint in appearance and exquisite in sound. $4375. 

(514)942-3789 or davidmtl2003@yahoo.ca. 

UNISON AMPLIFIER 

Unison Unico integrated hybrid amplifier. 80 watts 

per channel, tube (12AU7 x 2) preamp section, 

and MOSFET class "A" amplifier section with 

remote. Beautifly made in Italy. Great reviews in 

Sterophile. 16 months old, have original boxes 

and manual. Paid $2,200, will sell for $1,200. 

(450)465-4237 thebyrons@videotron.ca. 

YBA, MUSICAL FIDELITY, REF. 3A 

Tip-top condition. Owner moving. YBA-CD 1 

Alpha CAD$3,950, Musical Fidelity NuVista M3 

integrated $4,350, PS audio P600 $2,000, Ref 3A 

MM DaCapo $1,480, Lovan solid glass racks plus 

speaker stands $1,000. Email Jason at kjliow@ 

hotmail.com. 

SPECTRAL CD PLAYER 

Spectral SDR-1000SL. Legendary Spectral 

design, quality and sound. Widely considered 

one of the best CD players ever built. Called "the 

world's best player" by UHF (issues No. 26 & 

33, reviews available upon request). Very good 

condition. US$3,500 obo. Email buckybrown@ 

rcn.com. 

BLUE CIRCLE, OSKAR 

Blue Circle BC103 preamp. My upgrade from a 

Copland CTA305! Current model, fully-balanced 

with dual stepped attenuators. Unparallelled 

Issue No. 76 of 

resolution and dimensionality. New USD$3500, 

selling: $2300 Canadian. Oskar Syrinx speakers: 

new $4300 Canadian, selling $2300. burekp@ 

mcmaster or (905)297-0364. 

MUSEATEX REPAIRS 

Museatex/MeitnerAudio factory service and 

updates. Please check our web-site at www. 

museatex.com. E-mail me at john@museatex.com 

or phone (403)284-0723. 

VECTEUR IN VANCOUVER 

Cambridge Audio, TEAC, Parasound Halo, 

Angstrom, James Loudspeakers, Audio Art 

custom-built actively tri-amplified loudspeakers, 

Richard Gray AC, cables, stands, accessories. 

Custom installation and home theater. David 

Elderton Audio Video Consultant, (604)808-7394, 

evenings (604)988-6666. 

AUDIOMAT, VECTEUR 

Creekside Audio for all your stereo/theatre needs. 

Audiomat, Vecteur, Atlantis Acoustique, Gershman 

and lots more! Discover the magic in music with 

our fine products. (250)-878-6252, Kelowna, BC. 

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CUSTOM BUILT TUBE POWER AMPS 

High quality "Custom Built" vacuum tube power 

amplifiers by Ideal Innovations. Please visit our 

website at http://www.idealinnovations.ca for more 

information, e-mail idealinnovations@rogers.com, 

or phone (519)485-6137. 

Coming in May 2006


Reference 3a Veena 

Even without the prominent 

badges on both pods and 

grilles, you would probably 

spot these speakers as being 

from Reference 3a. Look at the canted 

fronts and the woven carbon fibre 

woofer, and that’s enough of a hint. 

Reference 3a founder Daniel Dehay 

retired a long time ago, of course, but he 

left the Canadian successor team dozens 

of notebooks with his design ideas. 

That’s where the inspiration for this new 

speaker came from. The woofer design is 

basically his, as is the idea of the simplest 

possible crossover: a series capacitor to 

protect the tweeter. The woofer rolls off 

naturally. 

The Veena (the name is that of a 

family of Indian musical instruments) 

is a natural competitor to the same 

company’s MM De Capo-i, which is 

slightly cheaper but requires a stand. The 

woofers are similarly-made, though the 

Veena’s is smaller. Obviously the Veena 

is physically larger than the MM, but 

they are nearly the same height. The 

soft-dome tweeter of the Veena is new. 

Such a slim speaker can be unstable, 

as many a manufacturer’s lawyers have 

discovered, which is why those three 

podlike feet are there. Because there are 

only three of them the speaker cannot 

wobble. Each comes with a spike. The 

terminal plate at the rear is heavy metal, 

on which are installed four good quality 

binding posts. The copper jumpers are 

from Cardas. 

The cloth grilles are included, 

though audiophiles without small children 

may want to leave them off. Like 

other Reference 3a speakers, the Veenas 

should be positioned so that the tweeters 

are offset to the outside. Yes, we know 

that’s the opposite of what every other 

manufacturer recommends. 

A word about Reference 3a before 

we begin. We know the brand well, 

since we have long used the Reference 

3a Supremas in our Omega system (and 

another speaker from the same designer 

used to be in our Alpha system). We 

considered Daniel Dehay to be one 

of the authentic geniuses of speaker 

design. We have been delighted to see 

more great speakers emerge from the 

(now) Canadian company, and we have 

been fearing that it would veer off into 

a different direction. It hasn’t happened 

yet. 

The speakers came to us already 

broken in, though we did add a few 

more hours to them before installing 

them in our Alpha system. We pulled 

out a stack of five LPs, plus one CD in 

case we needed it to confirm whatever 

our verdict would turn out to be. We 

noted right away that the Veenas are a 

lot less sensitive than our own speakers, 

and we wondered whether the claimed 

89 dB figure might not be optimistic. 

That said, we just turned up the volume 

and all was well. Like other Reference 3a 

woofers, this one is hard to overdrive. 

The first of the recordings was… 

We hope you’ll order either the 

printed edition or the paid online PDF 

version, either of whch contains every 

word of this review. 

A nd the other reviews too, of 

course. 

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tat. Giam dipit aliquipit praessi. 

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henis euissequi enim dolorem dunt 

alisl ute tatem dolum velessit aliquat la 

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praessi tinit, volore faccum inim ea 

consectet ulla ad tie dolesequat, commod 

eniscil landre do exeraes sequisit utpatum 

incil ullandreet iriure faci et adignim 

dolorer sustrud magnim velenibh eum 

dolore et wis amconse quamet velenim 

nonsecte et augue te dolobore do od mod 

dolorem ipsusci bla feugait eliquipit wis 

dolore duipit wis dolore 

dolorperos nit am ing et 

alit dolobore conse tionsequat, 

seniat nit nulputpatie 

cortion hendit, velent alit 

loreraessed mincipsumsan 

vel irillaore consequat, ver 

acin ea feum ad do odolessim 

irit at. Duipit alisi tat. 

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utpat. Ming ex ea feugue 

dunt augait, velis augait ad 

magna augiat adiat. 

Utpatie delisi. Bor si ea 

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ea facilit nonulla ad dignim zzriuscilla 

amcommo lorting et nosto endreet, 

vulputpat lore tiscinc ilisit wissim 

eu facidui scidui tat etuerit luptat 

dionsequat. 

Ignit lan eril diam, conumsandiam 

ing eugait alis amet acin exerit wis 

dolese miniat. Wis eliquat nonsed tat 

incilis nonsequam, sum quisiss equisi 

etum diatin vent utpat. Ibh enissit ipisi 

tie velesed dolorti niscilisim veliquat. 

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sit nisisl elenim il ulluptatum vel ut irit 

erat lorerat lum in vel dunt adigna con 

We were no longer 

unanimous. Reine 

and Gerard praised 

the counterpoints. 

Albert admitted to 

being disappointed 

eu facidui ex et nosto consed ercip ea 

facilla core dolore mincin ut vulput dolor 

sisim irit irillam irilis adiatetum do do 

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accumsan henibh euisse do ea consed 

minibh ero erciliquisim iuscin volortisim 

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sit, commy nisisl ulluptat velesto conse 

consequis nonsecte dit wisismolorem vel 

ulluptat ad eratisl ut nulla acillaorem dit 

ad dolessim velis ad magna faciliquam 

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ad ming er alismodigna autatummodit 

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do od tat, sisi. 

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aliquipsum essequi sciliss equisi. 

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lum ipsusci duisisl exeriureros ad digna 

conse velis dolenit la faciduis ex etum 

iriurem in utat. Ut nonumsandit luptat. 

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erat nummy num dolobore con eugue 

magniat aliquam ilisiscil dolestrud 

enim quat, sit vendipit luptat inis alit 

acin utpatem zzrilisim ipisit volorper 

sum nit lumsan exero odolor sum zzrilit 

prat, quiscidunt adit nulputat venisiscilit 

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tat lor ing et vulput vel et, quamcom 

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eratum qui te con henisissi. 

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eros niamcore feugue del ip eu feum 

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eliqui tem ip essi. 



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la consequam, commy nummod dolore 

tat, venibh estin henis atie elendre 

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augait nullam nonsenisim zzriustrud 

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iliqui blan exer sim do dio dit lamcortis 

aliquis acil ullaor sustis ero od diamcon 

eugait nonummod ero corting ea faci te 

faccumsan veliquam zzriusto ex ex et, 

consequam del iliquis sequisi. 

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magna facilluptate dio odolor sequatet, 

commolor susciduipit ip eugait iustrud 

magnim dolendi gniscilit nos adipism 

odionsequi esenim etum vent irit nis 

niam zzriusto ex eros autat, sum vulpute 

delit vullam, suscillandre venit ametueril 

ero eumsan eliquipsum dolore facin 

ver ipsustrud el inim er illa feugait wisl 

dolorpero od tissequat eugiam do odolore 

vullan ut am dip er in esenim velenim 

iliquis ex eugait augait iure dui enibh 

exerosto ex et, quis nibh ex exer sim ilit 

il exero odignit exer sisl iure essi eum 

dunt iusto odip et vero do exeriureet alis 

alit dolobore magnim qui blaore exeros 

nos doloreet in volore dolenibh et eum 

erit lan vero dolore duis am zzriurem 

et, quatem iriustrud tat velis nim del in 

ullaore min vulla feumsandiat. 

Odo essecte magna con ut nosto 

consequ ismoluptat wisisi. 

Aliquisi. Del et aute faccum 

velisci llamet nisse tis ex ent ad 

dit wis ad dolore feu feugait ad 

et acinibh et ver senibh er inim 

zzrit utatummolore conse del 

iustrud magnibh et, vullut nullamet 

nulla facil ut aliqui blaore 

tie feuipit augait amcommy non 

ea faci ese min utatin er sectet lut 

nostrud modipsustrud eugait, quisissed 

magnibh eu facipit ing ea aute tat nostie 

veros aut ulla feui eliquat adionum sandrerosto 

etum veriuscipis alit am do ea 

feu feuisi tat vel diam velesecte consequat 


Brand/model: Reference 3a Veena 

Price: C$3500/US$3000 

Size (HWD): 89.5 x 21.2 x 23 cm 

Sensitivity: 89 dB 

Impedance: 8 ohms 

Most liked: Loreet ut amet lorer sum 

volut luptat. Ut wis. 

Least liked: Lisim iriusci lismoloreet, 

con utatue magna facilluptate 

Verdict: Aliquisi. Del et aute faccum 

velisci? 

CROSSTALK 

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tem diamcon veliquam dolesto duisl 

eummy nibh euissit irilit lum dolore 

magna faccumsan henissis alisit lor iure 

volum acilit iuscipit numsand ignibh 

erostio et, commod delismolum vulluptatum 

zzril enim deliquamet nummy 

nisit adit am delisis cilit, volor ilis atue 

magnis delissit praesectet prat. 

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tet lorperosto deliquis dolortis amcommodip 

er susto od te del in henismodio 

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eros nostionsecte facil ea faccummy 

nullum dolorti onumsan exer suscipi 

scidunt er senim do consequat praesse 

et eugiat wisis niat. 

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Iriliquat. Ex eum volorer cillandio odip 

eum nisi. 

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aci enibh eugait luptatis augait wissim estrud 

diam inisi tionsequi et vulpute mod do 

odolent augait accummy nulland ionsecte 

core magna autpationum quat. Ut iustrud 

dolorem volenit augait, consequam vel iurem 

in vercil ullaorem dionse magna faci tem ilis 

ad enit nibh ercillan ver suscincillam dolor sit 

lam augait aut augiat ipit acilit accum at atin 

el dolortis eum volore te min henis adio dolorem 

volor sum ex eu faci eugait in ut vel utat. 

Non eleniam consed magna commodolore 

core el ullamco numsandipit lobore facidunt 

ullan et lummy num euguercipis dolorem 

am, quat, vel ent volestrud eugiatu eratis 

nonsed exeraesectet lore vel dit numsan 

henit in eugiat atueraessit inibh eum doluptat 

vulputat. Sent aute elit vel erostisit nosto et 

luptat, quisci et er amcortin heniat. 

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dolum veliquat, susci tat nim doluptatem 

quisim vent nit lorperaesto etuerostrud 

modipsusting ea commolor susting et nullaore 

core facil elendio et, conse mincilla 

faccum vent autat. 

Ostrud eummy nonsequis dolenibh eraessi 

blaor irit wismodo lortio et lore dolobore tis 

nonsecte commy nit, conulla feugiat ut ver 

ipit et, consecte faccum iniat dio doloreetue 

con henis nullut prat lummy nos niam ip 

estionulput wissit ipit velesenibh euguerit 

nim quis nullamet, vel ercilla acipsus ciduis 

augiat loborem dolore ex ea faci bla aliquip 

etue min verat, vel iuscidunt luptat. Ex ea 

faccum velit wisl eum zzrilla feuguero consequating 

ex ex eu facilit nibh esectem quat 

vercing et in ex ea feu feu feugait laore ea 

cortis nonulputpat, corer inissi ent atio dunt 

in et ad er irillandre do odio enis am, senim 

acidui eugiat aliquisim aut inciduip et lore 

feuguer aestrud ent nonummo dignisim et 

aliquis issequam iuscips uscipis et luptat. 



The return of the 

Reference Connoisseur 

Here’s a bit of irony. The first 

time any of us visited the 

Toronto factory of Audio 

Products International, we 

saw on the assembly line not only the 

original Energy Reference Connoisseur, 

but also a number of speakers with Asian 

names, which API was building for them. 

How times change! These new speakers 

were designed at that same factory, 

but they are built in Asia…specifically 

China! 

There’s a reason we asked to review 


these new Reference Connoisseurs. In 

1984, when the magazine was young, we 

adopted a pair of them as our reference. 

Initially that cost us some credibility. 

Because Energy’s marketing was then 

clearly aimed at the mass market, and 

the speakers were mostly seen in big box 

stores, it was assumed that the speakers 

couldn’t possibly be any good. A number 

of people paid us the supreme compliment, 

deciding that if we liked them then 

they must be fine after all. 

The Reference Connoisseurs were 

replaced in our audio reference system in 

1990, but they live on today in our Kappa 

home theatre system. One of them is 

shown on the next page. You might think 

that service in a cinema system might be 

less stringent than serving as an audio 

reference, but in fact both are tough jobs. 

And as we have occasional opportunity 

to confirm, they remain superb music 

speakers too. 

So the name is back, now applied 

to a line of several speakers, of which 

the RC-70 is the largest. It is not really 

the Energy flagship, since that honor 

belongs to the Veritas series. Indeed, 

as large speakers go these are not 

inordinately expensive. Our original 

speaker, in 1984, cost C$2000, including 

a $200 surcharge for the rosewood 

finish. And that included the Canadian 

manufacturer’s sales tax, then hidden in 

the price, since replaced by the GST, 

which you pay on top of list price. The 

original Reference Connoisseur, if it 

were still made, might now sell for closer 

to $6000. 

The new Reference Connoisseur 

looks impressive, with its three Kevlar 

drivers (a 12 cm midrange and two 15 cm 

woofers). All have cast metal baskets, as 

the original did. The aluminum dome 

tweeter is also in a cast housing. The 

veneered MDF cabinets sit on plump 

spikes with built-in locking nuts. The 

four binding posts are quite nice, and 

stay tight without coaxing. 

The original speaker’s qualit y 

depended on its unique drivers, and once 

again Energy has a patent on the cone 

speakers used here. Its notable feature 

is the Ribbed Elliptical Surround. The 

“surround” is the flexible ring around 

the cone that allows it to move. Energy 

says that the typical “half roll” surround 

can generate as much as 23% distortion 

at high level, and that its own speciallyshaped 

surround greatly reduces the 

distortion level. 

A word about the finish: because 

rosewood is an endangered species, 

there will never again be speakers like 

our originals. The finish on our RC-70 

is called “rosenut,” which looks vaguely 

like it. Not the same, but handsome 

anyway. 

Our test speakers came with some 50 

hours on them, and we added only a little


to that time before setting them up in 

our Omega system and having a listen. 

Our usual practice is to place test 

speakers in the same position as our 

Reference 3a Supremas, to see what will 

happen. We tried our first recording, the 

Olympic Fanfare from the old Center Stage 

LP. We weren’t totally happy with what 

we heard. The image was quite good and 

the depth adequate, but there seemed to 

be a certain lightness in the midrange, 

which robbed the wind band of its usual 

ample sound. Perhaps some adjustment 

might be appropriate. 

Energy provides two foam muffs that 

can be stuffed into the two ports at the 

rear to increase acoustic resistance. We 

inserted them and noted some improvement. 

Backing the speakers up closer to 

the wall was helpful too, and we listened 

to the recording again. 

“There’s more substance now,” said 

Albert, “and more…energy.” The lower 

midrange had fattened up, restoring a 

certain substance that had been missing. 

The high frequencies were quite good, 

without confusion, though Gerard found 

the cymbals rather too “hi-fi,” and Albert 

complained that the brass was too cool 

in tone. So did Reine. Another small 

change in placement confirmed that we 

were getting the best we could expect. 

Of course every word of this review 

can be found in our print edition, or in 

our electronic edition. Order either one 

through our Web site: www.uhfmag. 

com. 

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volum zzril ex et delit auguercilis ate 

faci blan hent amet lore dolummy nulpute 

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faccum adionsequip ero eliquip eros del 

utatet, commodo lorper sit vulluptat. To 

dunt ea feugue molorpero essit, corem 

alit ut adio odio endip erilis esequat, 

conumsan henit, sustincilit augiat. Volobortio 

et dolor sisl eugait vel in hent ad 

minissi smodolorper sum velessi. 

Ectet adiam zzriusc ipsusci el utpat. 

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facilla accum ing eugiam, vullaore dolor 

iureet, consequisis nibh eum del ut autat, 

veliquat eugait, susto dolorer sectet 

praesequat. Met dignibh et prationsed 

tem incinci bla feugait aute facip et, 

sum digniam etuerit wis dit vel utem 

dit lutat. Ut ut ullandiat dionsecte tat 

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volor sum zzrit lamet lore dolutpat. Tet, 

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exerit, vel iriure tat vel et dolobor suscilla 

feugait lut eugait, venis nulputp atissi. 

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tisl delit dit nummy nonsequam, vullum 

quam, vent in eugiat am in ut ad tie 

voluptat, vel exero odolesequat accumsan 

vullutpat, ver alisit am del ing etum qui 

te volor at. 

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adiamet lummy nonsequi bla feugait 

lummy nummod tie mincipis nummolum 

quis nostrud estrud dolor in utat, 

velenit autpat num aliquip susciliquat 

nisi tat luptat, conseni smolum zzriure 

etumsan eriustie coreet, quis ea faccummy 

nim augue molore min vendrer 

secte ming et, quat. Patin ea feuipit ut 

lorperat. Ut lore do euguer sequisi blaor 

incin ea feuis nos nulluptat il eu facipisi 

eum quam vullan henis nullamet alit 

adigna cor am, quat. Andit alissi. 

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endrem eugiamet ad erostinci blandiatie 

diam zzril diam acil utpat at, corem do 



commy num zzrillamet verit velit lobor 

sustrud ea atet nullaor aliquipit am zzriure 

ting el dit lute conse facilluptat adiam 

ing et lum vel in henis er aut ad er secte 

dipisit iustrud minim nim zzrilluptat 

ut praestis aciliquip ero do consecte et 

lore dunt atet, consequ atiscipit lum 

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ad ea commodo lestinis accummy nim 

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ilismodiam, consed ea faci blaore tie ver 

ing eum nonsequam dolore dit nisim init 

nullupt atuerit init praessis at, secte dolut 

lut volore feugue minim nim dolortis 

dionsed eu feu faciniat. 

Od magniam ipsusci ea corpera 

esenissim ing el enisim incin vullum 

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Ugait nis dolore dionulla feu faci eu 

feum diam, volore tincil et in utat nos 


Brand/model: Enery Reference 

Connoisseur RC-70 

Price: C$2500/US$2000 

Size (HWD): 100.2 x 19.7 x 35.5 cm 

Sensitivity: 92 dB 

Impedance: 8 ohms, dipping to 4 

Most liked: Quipit alit ing eugiat 

luptatue voloreet luptat ulputat 

Least liked: Unt niat. Ut nostrud dit 

lan vullut dolor 

Verdict: Ugait nis dolore dionulla feu 

faci eu feum? Feh! 

CROSSTALK 

nit dolortie molestis nummolessit, core 

commod tet prat dolut utat vulputat. 

Quipit alit ing eugiat luptatue voloreet 

luptat ulputat nonulpute estrud modio 

con utpatie commy nostisl utat ut lum 

volortio dolor irit vulput ullandrem zzril 

dionseq uamcons ectetuer ad te magnim 

quam veniamet et at lan ea am, volut 

acip eummy nisiscin hendio odionummy 

nonsed et enibh eugiamc onullan et wis 

delit eu facin exero et, conse do commodo 

lumsan ullutat. 

Unt niat. Ut nostrud dit lan vullut 

dolor senis dolent atinissi ea feu feum 

velit volenim il utpat wisl delisit utat 

adio eliquating et wis nis dolorer si tin 

eui eugiamet utat at lorerosto odiam qui 

blaore et et praessisim quisim iure volore 

ver iustrud tetum duismod. 

Accum dolor iriusto dolortie volupta 

tueros aliquam nisl er si. 

Ibh estrud duis ero corem dolorem 

eugiamc onsendipis et praestrud tem 

doluptatis nullandre velit augiat am iustionsent 

wis at in ut luptat. 

Onsequat. Ut auguero odio od tionsed 

ex ercipit, vel ut nibh ex er alit lum dui bla 

conulla facin eros eumsandre vulla facil 

irilisl ipsusci tem iril et wisl il ullaortisl 

erat. Se verit lutatie euguera esequismolum 

nis aliquis at ex essismo lortis diatet, quam 

iustrud esse velis accummy nulla feugait irit, 

quis am zzrit lutpat. Niat delis autet, quis 

delit adit ing eugait num zzriure vel illam 

augait inim do con ulputate ent nullaore 

dolor alit ex esse magnim dolor sit aliquam, 

vulput ip el eugue eugue commolesto odip 

et luptatem iureet dolutpat alit prate commole 

sectet, consecte molum zzriurer se do 

consectem vercillaore miniate minibh er il 

ipissis at autat wissit veliquat. Illa faci tat 

wis num aut num in utet, consent ullaorem 

zzrilis nulput vendipsummy nim et lutet in 

hendio do odipsuscil ut nibh et prat. Ut lore 

dui ent alis atem vullaor peraesto od ming 

et lor irit nostrud eraesequat wissit adigna 

commodo lendrer iureet el iusci eugiam nit 

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vullaor percillan vel inismodolore faccum 

dolore consectem ero eril duis accumsandit, 

senibh er sis nulla consequisi tissed modolobortie 

do core velismo dolore tem aute 

consed dunt num dolore facinim in vel dolore 

etue consequatem vero et, quatem quat alisi 

et loborem nos nim zzrit nit wisl exeriliquat, 

quamconsequi tem venim vullam zzriliquis 

nonsecte modolorem exero et aliquisis 

dolobor ipsummy nullamc onullaortin eugait 

in ullamet dolore esto ex eliquatio odolore 

tinibh er irit nit, vel ute tat. 

Nonsequ ismoles equipit wisismod dolor 

aliquipit nonsectetuer sendiam dui eugait 

acipit velesequamet veros num duisi. 

Agnismolore magniam inim venibh eu 

feugiam dolutatet praesting exero del incil 

do dolor suscidunt lorper init, quisl inim 

veraesenisi. 

Iquamcommy nostrud dolor adiamcommy 

nim qui tin velit dipit, consequ ipsuscilit vullandre 

feuguer cidunt eum zzrilit duiscipsum 

eliquat alit nonsequis alit veliquisl er augue 

eugiamc onsectem velit ad tet amet, sumsan 

henim do eu faccumm odignibh ea facilisit 

loreros at lorperos autpatummod te tat, 

sequis alit in ullaor sim dion utat. 

Rud molesequis eugue minci tem 



Benchmark DAC1 

We are used to getting 

calls and e-mails about 

yet another product 

that has received a rave 

review from someone at one of the 

world’s many audio magazines. Of course 

if we agreed with what gets written in 

other magazines, there would be little 

point in producing this magazine. And 

we are especially wary of rave reviews 

involving digital products, because some 

of the world’s worst have been praised to 

the skies by someone. 

We received several letters about the 

Benchmark DAC1, which Stereophile 

named “Product of the Year.” We were 

mildly intrigued, and when Benchmark 

itself contacted us about a review, we 

accepted. 

With most major manufacturers 

moving to single-box players, outboard 

digital-to-analog converters are getting 

rare, and the laws of the market dictate 

that rarity results in higher prices. 

What’s really unusual about the DAC1 

is its price: below US$1000. 

Also unusual is the fact that Benchmark 

Media Systems isn’t really a consumer 

audio company. Its products are 

mainly aimed at the pro audio market: 

microphone preamps, headphone amps, 

and the ACD1…which, as you probably 

will have guessed, is an analog-to-digital 

converter. The DAC1 was also a pro 

product, complete with a wide rackmount 

front panel. And then the company 

decided to offer it to consumers, 

sans the rack-mount ears. 

Thus packaged the DAC1 is surprisingly 

small, though both front and rear 

panels are quite busy. All the connectors 

you might want are there: XLR, 

TOSLINK and BNC coaxial for input 

(an RCA adapter for the BNC is supplied, 

but it’s nickel-plated), and both balanced 

and coaxial for output. The rear panel 

still has room for a user-accessible fuse! 

They must have used a shoehorn. 

The front panel has an input switch, 

a couple of error lights (indicating either 

that there is no signal or else that it isn’t 

the sort of Pulse Code Modulation signal 

it can decode), and a volume control. 

Of course that means the DAC1 can be 

used without a preamplifier. You can also 

switch to one of several preset levels, 

adjustable from the rear with a small 

screwdriver. That’s how we ran it in our 

test. 

Oh yes, there are also a couple of 

front panel jacks, because — as if all the 

other goodies were not enough — this 

baby is also a headphone amp, for you 

and a friend. We skipped that, but we’ll 

return to it in a later issue. 

Being a pro product, the DAC1 can 

handle high definition signals, up to 24 

bits with a sampling rate of 96 kHz. 

We ran the listening test in our Alpha 

reference system, comparing to our own 

DAC, a Counterpoint DA-10A, fed from 

a CEC TL51X transport through an 

Atlas Opus digital cable. 

We began with a recording which 

sounds so good on our own systems 

that it is difficult to believe some players 

and other components can mess it 

up so badly: Now the Green Blade Riseth 

(Proprius PRCD9093). The DAC1 sure 

didn’t mess it up! The choral voices of 

both men and women were attractive, 

with layers of sound revealed in vibrant 

and limpid fashion. The flute, which 

has a solo at the start and then plays 

behind the singers and the guitar, was 

easy to follow. “Such beauty!” exclaimed 

Albert. 

Gerard expressed the smallest of 

reservations, noting a hint of graininess 

on the female voices and reduced body 

on those of the men. 

Pop over to www.uhfmag.com, and 

check out the printed edition. Or the 

electronic edition. 

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quamcommy nonulla faci bla 

conummy nis diamet utpat, quat. 

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tetummy nonsequat utem del utat. 

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ut inissit diatem del ullaore consendip el 

ut aut velis alis nonsequat. Ut nim vulla 

facidunt nos alis ea facilisl deliquam 

illam, vel etue consequat num ipit wis erit 

nibh el dolore tem delessequam quat. 

Cummy nosto eugue diam, sum exero 

delestrud magniam init irilism odipit wis 

aut nullam alit iusto commy num nibh 

et aut acillumsan utatum inci blamet 

wisl ut nulputp atuerci euis et et utpat, 

velit la alisi tatem zzriustrud dolortion 

henibh endignisim ea am zzriusci bla 

augiatu eraestrud ero odo dolore mod 

tionum augiam quamet utpatie ming 

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euguercipis nonse faccummy nullummodion 

ulpute vel inim et, sim do odiam, 

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quat in henit laor si. 



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magnim ipit wiscip eui et nonsequ 

ismolestrud dolessi. 

Minis nosto odolor sed tionullute 

tem eugait acilit, commodo loborpe 

riliquamet, quatie minci etum velent 

iriusci llamet lore mincili quisim inci 

bla amcorem quate magniate consed min 

vent lutpat vullummy nulla feuis essit 

euisl utatie dolore dunt numsandiam erci 

tem zzriusci blam iriustinisl ipisl exerit 

ea am, vel dolorerit utpatie estrud tem 

iure vulputpat. Iril do con volor sis nos 

nos nis nisis erat, vel ip essequat. 

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duis dolorem augue et atum diamconsent 

alit inci blam, quamet praesto 

odit lobore diamet autpat 

adipsusto odio odiat. Equat 

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tiniatem ing ex eum doloreet 

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ut acilisi. 

Ed et adit, consequisim autpat dolore 

do del irilit aut alit dolorti onsent esto 

dit autem aci bla facidunt do dolor 


Brand/model: Benchmark DAC1 

Price: US$975 

Size (WDH): 20.5 x 21 x 4.5 cm 

Most liked: Minis nosto odolor sed 

tionullute tem eugait acilit 

Least liked: Iril do con volor sis nos 

nos nis 

Verdict: Et am zzriureet aute magnim 

esequisit lore molorem 

in ute del ing etuero 

diamconsent at la 

feugue dolorer secte 

commy nos nonulla 

consequissi. 

Vulput alisl in hendignim 

eugait del inisit 

nulput eliquat. Ut iure 

dolestin esed dolore 

feu facipisim ilit aut 

atue consequ iscidui 

blaorem iril ut prating et veliquat. 

Et am zzriureet aute magnim esequisit 

lore molorem velismo luptat. Ignisit 

ut acipsusto dit ad eugait prat. Diamcommy 

nit vullum nostinim zzrilla 

feugueril ulluptat. Duisl dipit atin ut 

nos nulla amet, si elesto del ex el iustrud 

dipsuscil inisi tisl ero dolum ipis acilla 

aliquis dolorperos augiam dolorpero 

delit aciliqu isisim quatem ver iustrud 

dolorem in venim niamconse min vel 

et, vel et ut exer si tat. Equisciduis alit 

dolortin vullandrem dolortie ming ero 

odolor iniatisse tationse consecte venibh 

ea feuip euismoloreet utat, consendigna 

faccum volorem quatem nullamcor 

sequis exero odolore feuissis dolessecte 

ex eratinis ad delit vulpute dolortio duis 

nos nibh etum zzrilit lorpera essectem 

nim autatum vent prat. Igniam dolobore 

faciduisl er adipisi. 

Iriureetum quisim endre do commy 

nonsequat at. 

CROSSTALK 

On utpat eugue dolor iusci ex ea core vero 

odo dipis duip enim quamcore minci bla 

commy nim nostrud eros dolumsa ndignim 

dolore modiam volesto euisim ad tat ip ea 

facin utpat. Equis at amet loreet aut do ex 

estrud tem dolore tie faccum dolore tion elit 

autpatem diat. Essenim ea consecte magna 

feu feugiat. 

Te min et acipsum alis augait dolore 

facinci ncipisit do do dolore vullamet verit 

lutem nos nibh eril duis dolore magna 

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A Learning Remote…Cheap! 

Remember when you could 

buy a replacement remote 

control, and you could teach 

it the commands of your other 

remote controls? That sure beat having 

five remotes spread out across the coffee 

table. You know who you are. 

But then the marketing mavens piped 

up. It seems a lot of people out there had 

to put electrical tape across the front 

of their VCRs so they wouldn’t see the 

display flashing 12 midnight all the 

time. Teach commands to a universal 

remote? Yeah, right. The manufacturers’ 

toll-free help lines were overwhelmed. 

And besides, what did you do if you 

were buying the replacement because 

the original remote was broken? 

Enter the modern universal remote, 

which may cost anywhere from $12 to 

$40, and which requires no more effort 

than looking up the number code for 

your product and punching it in (the 

people at the other end of the toll-free 

number can even help consumers with 

that). With time, learning functions 

became the province of expensive 

remotes, some of them with absurd 

four-digit price tags. Which is too bad, 

because audiophiles and owners of high 

end home theatre systems discovered 

that they owned components the makers 

of common remotes had never heard 

of. 

But the tide is turning, judging 

from some recently-released units. 

The OneForAll Kameleon, reviewed 

in UHF No. 69, can learn anything you 

want to teach it, and its street price is 

often well below $100. Now, from the 

same company, comes the URC10820 

(catchy name, that), which has the usual 

device codes you can punch in, but 

which can also learn. When we read 

the press release listing the price as 

C$35, we initially thought it had to be a 

misprint. Then we discovered that what 

the press release calls “full learning” 

does not mean learning on every key. It 

turns out only three keys (L1 through 

L3) can learn (though they can learn 

different commands for each of the ten 

devices controlled). We were bitterly 

disappointed, until we realized that the 

feature set was so rich we might not 

actually need more than three learning 

keys. 

Functions aside, the URC-thingit 

(the focus group must have been low on 

caffeine that day) does look and feel like 

a $35 device, with generic styling and 

slightly spongy keys (the channel and 

volume buttons are especially dodgy). 

But the button layout is decent, and for 

once the mute button isn’t hidden away 

so you can’t find it in the dark. The body 

is quite large, without a taper that would 

allow it to fit the hand comfortably. 

Actually the setup codes do include 

several high end brands, such as Sonic 

Frontiers, Bel Canto and Mark Levinson, 

not to mention long-vanished brands 

such as Audio Alchemy, though it is 

top-heavy with the likes of Lloyds, Symphonic 

and Soundesign. If you can’t find 

your own code, you can ask the remote 

to find it for you: for instance, you can 

get it to cycle through all the power on/ 

off codes until your product responds. 

Using this feature, the OneForAll took 

only moments to find the codes for even 

our more obscure products, such as 

the Moon Stellar DVD player and the 

Attraction preamp-processor. We even 

used the method to find the code for our 

Hitachi HDTV monitor, because it was 

faster than trying the eight code numbers 

provided for Hitachi. 

There’s more to this clever remote, 

which borrows from the company’s more 

expensive remotes. 

It may occur to you that, although 

this unit can control 10 different products, 

in most cases you won’t want to 

control just one product at a time. When 

you’re watching broadcast TV, say, you’ll 

want the channel buttons to change 

channels on your TV set, cable box or 

satellite receiver, but the volume buttons 

should control your amp or preamp. 

Now what? 

OneForAll has a couple of solutions. 

One is “Volume Lock.” As you might 

guess, invoking this mode locks the 

volume control in the mode you want 

(preamp or amp) even when you switch 

the remote to some other function (TV 

or DVD). The other, which we also 

saw on the Kameleon remote, is called 

Keymover. Once your product codes are 

entered into the remote, you can move 

the code for one or more buttons into the 

function of another. This feature offers 

more flexibility than you might guess. 

Let’s say you’ve successfully programmed 

the commands for all of your 

components into the remote. Most 

people don’t have ten components, 

so you’ll have buttons left over, such 

as Aux 1 and 2. Let’s make Aux 1 the 



Isoblue Naim Neat ProAc Rega 

Arcam Creek Crimson 

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to 

yield to it.” 

Oscar Wilde 

hi fi fo fum 

The Goods 

Are 

Odd, 

But 

command set you want at hand when 

you’re watching a DVD. Use Keymover 

to move the preamp volume and mute 

commands into Aux 1, then move in the 

player controls, and perhaps the command 

to lower the projection screen into 

place. This is virtually endless, and it can 

give you all the flexibility you need even 

without using the learning commands. 

Indeed, Keymover is not compatible 

with learning, because a function 

you taught the remote is not visible 

to Keymover. That’s an unfortunate 

limitation. 

We did find that, even if the remote 

has the right command set, it may omit 

certain commands. The remote assigned 

no keys for such common DVD functions 

as language and subtitles, nor 

did it assign keys to switch our preamp 

between surround sound and stereo. The 

learning function came in handy. 

The OneForAll can also accept 

macros, which are grouped sets of commands. 

Here it is less flexible, though it 

will be adequate even for most high end 

users. 

! 

The 

Odds 

Are 

Good 

Ringmat Royd Visonik 


935 Mount Pleasant Road 

Toronto 416-421-7552 

At the top of the remote is the Master 

Power Key, which can turn all your 

components on or off at the same time. 

True, if one of the components doesn’t 

“see” the remote, it will stay off, and 

when you hit the button again the others 

will turn back off. However a brief push 

will activate power for just the current 

component. Clever. 

More useful for macros are the ten 

device buttons. For instance, when you 

choose DVD on the remote, you can set 

up a macro that will turn on your players 

and switch the preamp to the DVD 


Cyrus Ecosse Eichmann Epos ATC 

Brand/model: OneForAll URC10820 

Price: C$34.95 

Most liked: Surprising flexibility 

despite the low price 

Least liked: Awkward shape, limited 

learning, no sequential commands 

Verdict: For once, a remote that’s not 

dumbed down 

input and surround sound mode. Setting 

up macros is a little finicky because the 

remote has only an LED for feedback, 

but you’ll need to do it only once. 

Finally there are three keys specifically 

designed for other macros, labelled 

M1 through M3. 

Remote control designers are getting 

smarter, or perhaps they finally got to try 

their own products. We recall expensive 

remotes that wouldn’t do streams of 

commands. To raise the volume, you 

had to push the volume button for each 

tiny increment, you couldn’t simply hold 

the button down. Needless to say you 

couldn’t go into fast forward with your 

VCR, CD or DVD player either. These 

goofs seem to be a thing of the past. 

However this remote still will not 

work with components that require a 

sequence of commands. We are acutely 

aware of this limitation, since one of our 

home theatre components has precisely 

this requirement. 

It’s our Simaudio Moon Attraction 

preamp/processor. Push the button for 

audio input one, and it will go to digital 

one. Want analog one, for TV? Push 

the Analog button, then quickly hit the 

“1.” This is actually tricky, and we don’t 

always get it right the first time. 

The OneForAll remote can’t do this 

except manually. You can’t program 

a macro to do the sequence, because 

it leaves too long a gap between the 

commands making up the macro. 

The Kameleon suffers from the same 

limitation. 

Fortunately relatively few components 

require this sort of one-two 

sequence. One of the rare remotes that 

will take this requirement in stride is 

the Harmonic, reviewed in UHF No. 74. 

Since the Harmonic is programmed 

through the company Web site, we were 

able simply to select the analog one input 

without specifying a sequence. Once 

programmed, that function could be 

incorporated into a macro. 

For a number of reasons, this One- 

ForAll remote is an impressive one. It 

won’t enhance your coffee table, and you 

may not want to spend the evening holding 

it, but once you have it programmed 

chances are it will do everything you’ll 

want. At the price, it can even be an 

impulse buy.

Feedback Cinema 

Cinema 

TV, preferring to run the audio cables 

directly to an amplifier. Ah…hi-fi! 

Sort of. 

HDMI: the 

Magic Cable? 

Have you noticed that, no 

sooner have you purchased 

expensive cables for your 

home theatre system than 

they change the standard? As someone 

once said, “Standards are wonderful 

things, that’s why we have so many of 

them.” 

In the beginning… 

When you bought your first VCR, the 

home manifestation of the professional 

videotape miracle, perhaps you used just 

one wire: a flat 300 ohm antenna cable 

that connected to the antenna terminals 

of your TV. Television sets then had no 

other input. If you got cable TV, you 

used a little transformer to connect the 

cable company’s coaxial to the same 

terminals. 

The quality was terrible, and if we 

didn’t notice it was because we were so 

thrilled to be able to record video at all. 

To get a signal into the TV, the VCR 

needed a tiny television transmitter, 

which you set to either channel 3 or 4, 

depending on which one was free. The 

number of lines of resolution? Oh, let’s 

not go there. 

Getting in directly 

As game consoles were added to those 

expensive VCR’s, makers of upscale TV 

sets added an A/V (audiovisual) input. 

On early sets you got to it by selecting 

channel 99 (that was, of course, before 

cable and satellite systems offered more 

channels than that). There were now two 

cables, both of them resembling audio 

interconnects, one for video, the other 

for sound. Soon after the cables grew 

to three, allowing stereo sound. A few 

adventurous souls connected only the 

(yellow) composite video cable to the 

Connecting up Super VHS 

Television sets had pictures made 

up of 480 lines (100 more in PAL and 

SECAM countries), but the VCR was 

topping off around 250 lines, often 

less. How to get more resolution from 

a VCR? Enter Super VHS (Sony’s Beta 

also had a hi-res system, but by then 

VHS was nearly alone in the arena). 

A costly Super VHS cassette could 

get some 400 lines of resolution onto 

tape. That would have been wonderful 

for those with digital sources, but who 

wanted to buy a $15 tape? They were 

purchased mainly by professionals, who 

shot industrial and wedding videos, and 

wanted to be able to edit without losing 

too much resolution. 

However Super VHS couldn’t deliver 

its superior resolution through the old 

two-conductor composite video cable, 

and so a new standard arrived: S-Video 

(often confused with Super V HS, 

though the two are only tangentially 

related). This multiwire cable also made 

possible another high-resolution video 

source, the LaserVision videodisc. A 

great many films were released in this 

now dead format, which may be the 

reason hardly anyone released films in 

Super VHS. 

Separating the functions 

New technology should be simpler 

than old technology, but that didn’t 

happen with video cables…not right 

away at least. The single S-Video cable 

became three cables. 

That was done to separate the colors 

used to make up the image, but actually 

that’s too simple an explanation. True, 

the three wires (which typically used 

phono plugs, just like the old composite 

cable, though some used BNC twist-lock 

connectors) are typically colored in red, 

green and blue, but in fact the triple 

cable, called “component video,” breaks 

up the signal in quite a different way. 

Component video transmits the color 


Feedback Cinema 

difference rather than actual colors. 

The “Y” channel (the green wire) carries 

luminance, which is the brightness 

variation. A monochrome image needs 

only luminance of course. The “Pr” 

channel (the red wire) carries the difference 

between the red signal and the 

luminance signal. The “Pb” channel 

(the blue wire) carries the difference 

between the blue and luminance signals. 

To keep everything in step, sync pulses 

are transmitted over the “Y” luminance 

channel. 

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UHF: Let’s begin with some background. 

You started out with a record company. 

Winston Ma: No, I started some 30 

years ago as a reviewer, writing about 

music and equipment. I went to the UK 

and met the designers of Linn, Rogers 

and Spendor. Many years later I became 

the director of product development 

at Rogers. When I retired I moved to 

Seattle. That’s where I started First 

Impressions Music, though before that I 

had a company called Golden String. 

UHF: Why the change from Golden String 

to FIM? 

Rendezvous 

Making a First 

Impression 

Ma: Well, I was working so hard that 

my wife was complaining, saying she had 

been waiting all her life for me to give 

some time to her. And I needed a break. 

So I sold Golden String, which was in 

Hong Kong, before the régime changed. 

That was when I moved to the US. But 

after a few months I told my wife I was 

We chat with 

Winston Ma of First 

Impressions Music 

dying, because I had nothing to do. 

UHF: And she agreed? 

Ma: She said it would be all right if I 

started a small company without any 

employees, doing maybe one recording 

a year. So I started FIM in 1997, with — 

unfortunately — ten recordings. 

UHF: That’s enough for ten years! 

Ma: (Laughs) Business gets crazy, and 

my wife is complaining again, but that’s 

the problem with someone who is so 

fanatical about sound and music. 

UHF: What was your very first product, 

beyond the recordings? 

Ma: I don’t remember, because it all 

came more or less at the same time. I 

began with some refinement gadgets, 

which I had built after thinking about 

them two years. I worked with seven 

engineers to work out how we could 

build the most perfect music room in 

the world. It’s not easy. 

So I began at the beginning, which is 

the power source. None of the available 

wall outlets satisfied my specifications. 

So I built my own outlet, the A80, which 

became so popular I made some 30 or 40 

thousand pieces. My Japanese distributor 

was selling a thousand a month. That was 

my first product! 

UHF: And then you moved on with more 

products. 

Ma: Then cables and other things grew 

out of a natural demand, because I 

couldn’t find the sound I liked. 

UHF: What’s the difference between a 

duplex wall outlet for audio, and the ones 

many audiophiles use, which are hospital 

grade? 

Ma: The difference is in how best the 

manufacturer can insure a stable and 

permanent grip. Then there’s the materials 

used, which should be good copper. 

And finally there’s the housing, whether 

it is strong and solid enough to have the 

least vibration and resonance. 

Hospital grade outlets are very good, 

but they may not have the best sound. 

They are made so they will never fail, 

and so they will have the best possible 

connection. But audiophiles have different 

requirements: the quality of the 

copper, and the nature of the oxidation 


Rendezvous 

Feedback 

process. Of course everything will 

oxidize over time, but you want it to 

take a long time. We are also concerned 

over whether damping against vibration 

and isolation against RF and EMI 

are effective. That’s not of concern for 

hospitals. 

Some audiophiles have deep pockets, 

but they don’t realize that perfection 

starts at the wall. Or even farther, in the 

street. Power is like the blood in your 

body. 

UHF: You have a number of anti-vibration 

products as well. 

Ma: Yes, because the tuning of a system 

requires many things, including acoustic 

panels, and each part of the chain must 

have the least amount of coloration 

possible. Many people consider vibration 

and resonance to be the same, but 

they are different things. One simple 

example: you try to keep a cable from 

vibrating, but you don’t consider what 

resonance will do to it. Or consider the 

power outlet and the plug. Their housings 

will have a lot of noise, and you must 

overcome it. Likewise in a CD player or 

preamplifier, the chassis itself resonates 

and becomes a generator of noise. 

All the products I’ve introduced 

are not for gimmicks or for show, but 

because I need them so I can have better 

sound. 

UHF: For your own system? 

Ma: For my own system. As a result 

people like it, and so I make more. 

UHF: Take this equipment platform you 

make. It’s sitting on rollers. 

Ma: Yes. I admit using balls is not my 

invention, but I always consider whether 

we can do something better. If someone 

is using a ball and a puck, I think about 

using two pucks. If one puck takes out 

50% of the vibration and resonance, why 

not 100%? So here I have two pucks. 

UHF: Which are identical. 

Ma: Which are identical. The material 

used can result in different sound. These 

are brass plated with hardened steel. The 

balls are hardened steel, but you can pay 

more and get tungsten carbide balls, 

instead of paying thousands of dollars 

to change your amplifier. And the very 

best would be silicon nitrite. This can 

perform a miracle on your sound. 

UHF: This is something you’ve determined 

by trial and error? 

“We have no 

gimmicks. I could add 

a fancy piano black 

finish, but it actually 

wouldn’t sound as 

good.” 

Ma: Yes, and by physical checking and 

manufacturers’ specifications. I will 

soon be producing better pucks, made 

of stainless steel that is platinum-plated. 

But it must be nonmagnetic. They will 

sound even better. 

Wood is very good for audiophiles, 

but the best-sounding wood is ebony, 

which is prohibitively expensive. The 

next best is hard rock maple from Michigan. 

Its name comes from the fact it’s 

very heavy. We’ve compared, and that 

is the best that is practical. I emphasize 

that we have no gimmicks. We could add 

a fancy piano black finish, but it actually 

wouldn’t sound as good. 

UHF: What about the tuning blocks? 

Ma: This is an old idea. When I was 

young, and when you were young, we 

used the VIP wooden blocks on top of 

equipment. I still remember how good 

they were, but they don’t make them 

any longer, so I do, but with a lot of 

changes. It’s a piece of solid maple block, 

and inside is a quantity of solid lead. 

Underneath is some ERS. 

UHF: ERS? 

Ma: ERS is a fine cloth, used by the military 

for shielding against radio frequency 

and electromagnetic interference. In the 

Gulf War, there were collisions between 

planes because their navigation equipment 

was jammed by RF and EMI, so 

someone came up with this cloth made 

from very thin wires coated with Teflon, 

knitted tightly together to form cloth. It 

is very effective, but you have to know 

how to use it, and particularly how to 

ground it. Many people use ERS but get 

so-so results. 

UHF: That’s why you have grounding wires 

at the back of each tuning block. 

Ma: Yes. You can place a tuning block on 

a CD player or even a power amplifier, to 

find the focal point of the vibration and 

resonance and stop them. It varies from 

machine to machine, so you have to use 

trial and error. Once you have found the 

right position, you connect the wire to 

ground so that the ERS is activated. 

UHF: That makes the system sound 

better? 

Ma: It makes it sound different. I say 

different, not better. It depends on the 

particular characteristics of the instrument. 

If you place the tuning block 

directly over the digital chip, you may 

find that immediately it sounds so much 

quieter, or smoother. 

You can also try the block upright. 

Some people have found that ERS is 

most effective vertically. So you have to 

play and listen, and then you use another 

block for the preamp, and power amp. At 

the end of the day you may readjust the 

one on the CD player. That’s how you 

tune your system. 

UHF: We presume your wife has despaired 

of seeing you retired. 

Ma: She has served me an ultimatum. 

If I don’t finally retire this year, she 

will leave for Australia and live with 

our daughter. This is a dilemma for me, 

because the passion goes on and I can’t 

stop. Whenever I see anything that I 

don’t feel good about, I try to improve 

it. And sometimes it works. 

UHF: You have AC line filters too. 

Ma: Yes, the Energy Center line distributor. 

There are a lot of them out 

there, lots of filters. These filters are 

good for some things, but not good 

for sound, so I designed one. At shows, 

exhibitors come and borrow them, and 

they come back and say mine works so 

much better. 

UHF: You enjoy this. 

Ma: It’s the kind of joy that keeps my 

energy alive. 


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Finding Graupner 

Must I present him as an 

unknown? As a creator 

unjustly treated by the musical 

society of his time? As a 

victim of the considerable celebrity of his 

contemporaries, notably Vivaldi, Bach and 

Telemann? How to explain his absence from 

the literature of Baroque music? Was he so 

banal, or even downright incompetent? 

In an era of countless and diverse 

means of communication, it is difficult 

to imagine the hardships once faced by 

scientists, artists and musicians, whose 

access to information was limited to oral 

communication and a few journals and 

newspapers. When we come across the 

greats of the past, it is often thanks to 

a rediscovery, often in an astonishing 

context. Take the three just mentioned: 

Vivaldi, Bach and Telemann. 

After knowing glory and good 


fortune, Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) 

died poor and forgotten. A number of 

the works he had penned slept, overlooked, 

somewhere in a castle, until, by 

a mysterious stroke of luck a connoisseur 

with an extraordinary flair came across 

this colossal treasure (see Rediscovering 

Vivaldi in UHF No. 52 for that amazing 

story). 

As for Johann Sebastian Bach (1685- 

1750), much as he was admired in his 

time for his exceptional gifts for organ 

playing, for improvisation and even for 

organ repair, his talent of composer was 

nearly unrecognized. It seems more 

than likely that he published none of 

his works. Even today, a good thousand 

of his compositions may remain to be 

catalogued. 

After a long eclipse, then, Bach was 

rediscovered by an enthusiastic 20 year 

old admirer, Felix Mendelssohn. This 

young man, in 1819, conducted a performance 

of Bach’s Saint Matthew Passion, 

for the first time since the composer’s 

death. So great was its success that this 

event changed the history of music by 

awakening public curiosity and interest 

in the work of this sublime composer. It 

is, in fact, thanks to another member of 

the Mendelssohn dynasty, his grandson 

Moses, that Bach’s music was saved from 

obscurity and the entire world understood 

what a musical genius he was. 

As for Georg Philip Telemann 

(1681-1767), despite a fame that put into 

the shade many of his contemporaries, 

he too was forgotten after his death. In 

1919 French writer Romain Rolland 

(Nobel prize for literature, 1915), wrote, 

“Posterity made Telemann pay dearly for 

the insolence of his victory over Bach. 

This man, whose music was so admired 

in all the countries of Europe, is today 

an object of scorn.” 

That however begs the question: how 

is it that Bach, nearly ignored as a composer 

in his day, has known unequalled 

fame for more than a century, whereas 

Johann Christoph Graupner (1683-1760), 

who was in his lifetime as respected as 

Handel and even Telemann, has been 

erased from the history books? 

To attempt to clear up the Strange 

Case of the Forgotten Composer, we 

must begin at the beginning. We will 

examine his time, we will meet his 


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principal employer, and we will attempt 

to get to know Graupner the man. 

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Prelude to a detective story 

It is 1805 and we are in Darmstadt, 

Germany. Johann Christian Heinrich 

Rinck is a virtuoso organist, composer 

and teacher, a student of J. Christian 

Kittel, who was himself the last student 

of Johann Sebastian Bach. Rinck is 

named organist in a church close to the 

Darmstadt castle, a post he will occupy 

until his death 40 years later. 

During his long career Rinck, a 

collector who will do all he can to save 

works he considers precious, brings 

together a collection of 473 musical 

works for keyboard, many by musicians 

who gravitated around Johann Sebastian 

Bach. After his death in 1846, his collection 

is auctioned off. 

It is purchased by an American, 

Lowell Mason, who ships it off to Boston 

by sea. On Mason’s death, his entire collection 

of some 10,000 scores is donated 

to Yale University. In the collection are 

the scores Mason bought from Rinck’s 

succession, including 57 works by a certain 

Christoph Graupner. One of them 

is an anonymous copy of the original 

Partien auf das Clavier, published in 

Darmstadt in 1718. We now know that 

the Rinck collection is the largest source 

of Graupner’s music outside Darmstadt. 

Enter Sherlock Holmes 

Knock and it shall be opened, seek and 

ye shall find, ask and ye shall receive. In 

that order, the three phrases describe 

the work of one who set out to perform 

the colossal search which brought her 

well beyond her original goal. I am 

referring to the prestigious Canadian 

harpsichordist and organist Geneviève 

Soly, shown in the picture above. 

Soly, who holds a doctorate in performance, 

obtains a grant from the Quebec 

Council of Arts and Letters enabling 

her to take a sabbatical year and pursue 

her field of interest. For a long time she 

has been fascinated by German music of 

the 18 th Century. Her project: to track 

down original sources. Her major goal: 

to find a repertoire of German music 

from the 18 th Century not published in the 

20 th Century. 

It is not mere chance that, in November 

2000, brings her to the library of 

Yale in New Haven, for she knows about 

the Rinck collection of 473 volumes. 

Soly, who has always enjoyed trekking 

through libraries in her travels, now 

walks into it with a precise goal. Moving 

quickly through the index drawer for 

the period that interests her, she notes 

some 40 cards, and from those 40 she 

selects eight that might yield first-hand 

information for her search. For a reason 

that mystifies her, she is unable to tear 

her eyes away from one of the cards. 

It is that of a certain Johann Christoph 

Graupner. 

She does not recognize the name. 

On the card is written: Partien auf das 

Clavier. Christoph Graupner, Darmstadt, 

1718. Soly is astonished and enthralled. 

She borrows the eight books indexed 

on the cards. The second one she opens 

is of eight partitas signed by Christoph 

Graupner in 1726. “I gazed for a long 

time,” she says, “at these partitas I was 

seeing for the first time.” Eight partitas is 

a lot, several hundred individual pieces, 

a veritable collection. “I was at once 

intrigued and embarrassed. Here I am 

with a doctorate in performance, someone 

who has studied seriously the history 

of music. Could I possibly have forgotten 

something of such importance? 

“To tell the truth,” pursues Soly, “I 

had no point of comparison. Not much 

keyboard music was published in the 18 th 

Century. There was Couperin, 1713-14, 

and Rameau in 1714. I was galvanized. I 

couldn’t understand. All I knew was that 

I had before me something of the first 

importance. This was good music, well 

written, with body, music from the mind 

of someone I had never heard of. Nearly 

a year went by before I realized what I 

had found. Making a discovery doesn’t 

mean just coming across something, but 

realizing you’ve made a discovery.” 

Still astonished, Soly’s depth of 

knowledge of music, and particularly 

of keyboard music, allows her to realize 

that she has before her incredulous eyes 

music of uncontested quality by an early 

18 th Century composer. This is a major, 

masterly body of work. She must know 

more. 

Who was this Christoph Graupner? 

What to think of his prolific output, his 

creative power, his indubitable talent? 

How is it that this then famous virtuoso 

harpsichordist had to publish much of 

his work at his own expense, and even 

engrave the printing plates himself? 

So impressed is Soly, and so awak-

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ened is her curiosity, that she scours 

all research sources systematically for 

pieces of the Graupner puzzle. Initially 

she is disappointed, finding only a very 

few publications, all in German, but she 

remains determined. When she feels 

overwhelmed by doubt she tells herself 

that if Graupner is truly the genius she 

has been searching for, he cannot have 

passed unnoticed, and she must fatally 

find some trace of him. The thought 

comforts her. 

In May 2001 our musical Sherlock 

Holmes makes a breakthrough. Thanks 

to the Web, she comes into contact with 

Dr. Oswald Bill, former director of a 

library, the Hessiche Landes-und Hochschulbibliothek 

of Darmstad. Through 

Dr. Bill’s generosity, and thanks to 

his own passion for Graupner, Soly 

finally gains access to the near totality 

of Graupner’s music. And here ends 

the suspense: the collection has been 

well kept, and is in perfect condition. 

Because of an unfortunate happenstance, 

however, its existence has been simply 

forgotten. 

The story of this discovery is an 

exciting one, as you’ll no doubt admit, 

like a classic detective novel. Here are 

characters of a bygone age in a faraway 

land, and two contemporaries separated 

by an ocean, united by their passion for 

the harpsichord and for this forgotten 

genius. And yet there is a cloud in the 

centre of this silver lining, for the works 

of Graupner may yet be forgotten even 

at that library in Darmstadt. Dr. Bill and 

the librarian of the time having retired, 

there is now a new librarian who seems to 

have little interest for the person who is 

the subject of this article. Our hope rests 

on Geneviève Soly, whose perseverance 

is equaled only by her musical intuition, 

buttressed by her solid musical and 

musicological knowledge. 

Dr. Oswald Bill 

His own story is an interesting one 

too. When he arrived at the library in 

Darmstadt, he didn’t know that it held 

the works of Graupner, nor seemingly 

did anyone else. But how can 99.9% of a 

composer’s works repose within a house 

of culture without anyone being aware 

of it? 

Says Geneviève Soly, “When Dr. Bill 

first became aware of the existence of 

Graupner, he had a shock, just as I would 

later on. His curiosity was awakened and 

he undertook his research, but without 

bringing it to the attention of the international 

community. He spent long years 

cataloguing Graupner’s works. He made 

up special linen folders placed in cartons, 

in alphabetical order, and he made up 

the library index cards himself. The 

cards are commonly referred to by the 

name of IRMS, for International Repertory 

of Music Sources. He wrote down 

the composer’s name, the library index 

number, the title, the instrumentation 

and so forth. He dedicated his life to 

making up these cards, and establishing 

the first catalog of the works of Christoph 

Graupner.” 

Analogous to Bach’s BWV catalog 

numbers (Bach Werke Verzeichnis), 

published in 1950 by Wolfgang Schmieder, 

Graupner’s works are catalogued by 

GWV numbers. Created by Dr. Bill, the 

catalog was published in 2005. 

Graupner’s time 

Johann Christoph Graupner is born 

in Kirchberg, in what is then Saxony, 

on January 13, 1683, in the age of the 


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Baroque. He studies literature and law at 

the Thomasschule in Leipzig. He learns 

the harpsichord with cantor Johann 

Schelle and composition with Johann 

Kuhnau. 

Kuhnau is a lawyer, as well as a composer, 

organist and harpsichordist, and 

as music director of four churches, in 

charge of maintenance of the organs of 

two of them. He is the immediate predecessor 

of Bach. He is quite a tutor for the 

young boy, but in the early 1700’s Saxony 

is invaded by Sweden, and Graupner flees 

to Hamburg, leaving behind his books 

and manuscripts, as well as his lease. 

He is soon broke, but by luck there is a 

vacancy for a harpsichordist accompanist 

at the Hamburg Opera. Graupner 

remains in the post three years, while 

completing his musical education. 

He also adopts as a mentor the musical 

director of the opera, Reinhardt 

Keiser, himself a composer — he wrote 

eight operas in a single year, some 70 in 

all, as well as arias, cantatas, serenades, 

church music and more. Graupner actually 

collaborates on two operas with 

Keiser, before writing several successful 

operas of his own, including Dido, Königin 

von Carthago in 1707, and Bellerophon 

the following year. Keiser will later use 

some of Graupner’s melodies in his 

Carnival of Venice. 

The germ of a career 

It so happens that prince Ernst 

Ludwig, who reigns over the landgraviat 

of Darmstadt, in Hesse, is an 

accomplished music lover and sometimes 

composer of some talent. On 

his travels through Hamburg he sees 

one of Graupner’s operas, and burns 

A Portrait of Graupner 

In 1754, six years before his death, Graupner becomes blind and is therefore 

unable to compose. One day an artist creeps into his apartment, bent on painting 

his portrait. Sensing a presence, the composer flies into a rage. Despite his 

protestations, the painter does manage to complete his portrait, which remains in 

Graupner’s family, in the home of his daughter. 

Time passes… 

In the early 20 th Century, in the attic of their home, two children find the 

painting of someone they do not recognize. Ignorant of the painting’s value, the 

children are excited over the prospect of finally having a target they can use in 

their dart game. The portrait is soon in tatters. 

A century and a half after Graupner’s time, the memory of him has disappeared. 

No one suspects that the face on the painting is that of a genius. The damaged 

painting is put out in the trash. 


to introduce the young 

man to his court. In 1709 

he names Graupner vice- 

Kapellmeister, and three 

years later promotes him to 

the rank of conductor and 

court composer. Graupner 

spends most of his time 

composing and transcribing, 

drawing on French, 

Italian and German styles. 

It’s important to recall 

that the photocopier does 

not then exist even in the 

most fevered imagination. 

Printing is expensive, out of 

reach of most purses. The 

result is that most music is 

published in very few copies, typically 12 

to 20. Thus most people, if they wish to 

have the score of a work, must copy it out 

laboriously. Some copyists go so far as 

to imitate even the layout and title page 

of the original short-run publication. 

Graupner is no exception. Over and 

above the original music he writes as a 

condition of his employment, he copies 

or transcribes the scores of the composers 

he most admires. One of these is 

Vivaldi, who also admires Graupner and 

dedicates one of his concertos to him. 

When Kuhnau leaves his post of 

Cantor at the Leipzig Thomaskirche 

in 1723, seven musicians apply for the 

prestigious post. Telemann, who is then 

music director in Hamburg, is selected, 

but surprisingly he refuses (he may have 

applied to persuade his employer to 

give him a raise). The city councilors of 

Leipzig then turn to a young man whose 

competence and talent are remarkable, 

Christoph Graupner. 

But the prince is not prepared to let 

his court composer leave his employ, 

and mollifies him with a substantial 

raise, permanent tenure at the court, 

employment for Graupner’s sons, and 

even a pension for his wife should she be 

widowed (Graupner will in fact outlive 

her by 18 years). Graupner recommends 

to the Leipzig councilors that they hire 

Johann Sebastian Bach, who accepts and 

will spend the last 25 years of his life in 

that post. 

Why so forgotten? 

According to official documents,

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Graupner worked in Darmstadt 53 years 

and seldom traveled. During all that time 

he has no students who might help to 

popularize his music. What is more, he 

is of extreme modesty. He works as if it 

is the most natural thing in the world for 

him to do the work he was hired to do, 

much as street cleaner sweeps the road 

because that is his job. Truth to tell, he 

is not much concerned with leaving his 

mark on the history of music, or on history 

at all. Unlike such contemporaries 

as Telemann, he is little preoccupied 

with the popularization of his music. 

His modesty explains, in part, why this 

article features no portrait of the great 

man. See A Portrait of Graupner on this 

page. 

But can Graupner’s legendary modesty 

alone explain his order that, after 

his death, all of his works be cast in the 

fire? That seems doubtful. He must be 

conscious of the talent that is his, for 

how else could he keep company with 

remarkable composers who express their 

admiration and respect for him? 

There is another hypothesis: that he 

fears being judged by his peers. It is of 

course not uncommon for the talented 

to suffer from an inferiority complex, 

or what psychologists call a charlatan 

complex, a fear that, against all evidence, 

praise is undeserved. It is true that he is 

surrounded by gifted composers, who 

might be tempted to disparage him if 

only by jealousy. 

W hatever t he reason, t hat is 

Graupner’s instruction to his succession. 

He dies in Darmstadt on May 10, 1760. 

He is 77. 

Sad consequences 

With Graupner’s death, his executors 

are faced with the highly unusual request 

to destroy his life’s work. However they 

come up against fierce opposition from 

the court of the landgraviat. Has the 

composer not received a just and equitable 

compensation for his work at the 

court, including his compositions? And 

that being the case, do his works not 

belong to the prince’s court? 

A n epic battle is fought, with 

Graupner’s heirs on one side and the 

landgraviat of Darmstadt on the other. 

It will be settled only 59 years later, in 

1819, with recognition of the Darmstadt 

court’s ownership of all Graupner’s 

music. This is but a half victory for 

Graupner’s legacy, however, for in the 

meantime the earth has continued to 

turn. Other composers of genius have 

arrived on the stage of the musical world. 

Other musical genres have been born, 

the Classical and then the Romantic. 

Musical society has lost all interest in 

the music of the past, and Christoph 

Graupner is forgotten. 

His manuscripts and autographs 

remained in the library of Darmstadt. 

Thanks to the prescience of the librarians 

its collections survived the Allied 

bombings of 1944, which destroyed the 

entire city. They belong today to the 

university library in Darmstadt. 

Graupner the man 

In 1711 Christoph Graupner marries 

Sophie Elizabeth Eckard, who gives 

him a daughter, Maria Elisabeth. Their 

beloved daughter will marry and produce 

seven grandchildren. Geneviève Soly has 

a portrait of her, though, as mentioned, 

not of Graupner himself. 

On March 19, 1715, the day after 

a fire at the Darmstadt castle, is born 

Graupner’s first son, who is named 

Christoph. He is followed by another 

son, Johann Christoph, who in turn will 

have two sons. Other sons will include 

Georg Christoph, who will become 

court gamekeeper, Ludwig Christoph, 

and Heinrich Christoph, who will be the 

prince’s valet. None will be musicians. 

Like Bach, and like most other great 

composers of the time including Kuhnau 

and Telemann, Graupner must perform 

diverse tasks. He is a tireless worker who 

puts in long hours. Composing is one of 

his duties, and so he writes “alimentary 

music,” literally music for food. On top 

of his heavy workload, he conducts the 

court opera until 1720. Each Sunday he 

must produce a new cantata. “I believe,” 

says an admiring Geneviève Soly, “that 

he must have worked a good 70 to 80 

hours a week. He took no vacations, and 

did not even spare time to answer his 

mail. Not only did he write a good deal 

of music — more than Bach in fact — but 

once these works were written he had to 

conduct them!” 

A meticulous worker, Graupner 

leaves nothing to chance, adding copious 

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indications of dynamics and tempi, not 

only on the overall score but even on the 

parts for individual instruments. 

His handwritten scores are so beautiful 

they appear to be engraved, with 

calligraphy of exemplary perfection. The 

score at the start of this article, engraved 

by Graupner himself, indicates his search 

for perfection. 

His output seems limitless. He writes 

a number of operas, of which several find 

favor in musical society. By the time his 

eyesight fails he has composed nearly 

2000 remarkable works: 1418 church 

cantatas and 24 secular cantatas, more 

than 40 concertos with wind instrument 

solos in the Vivaldi style, as well 

as overture-suites for orchestra, sonatas, 

chamber music, keyboard works…in 

short an extraordinary body of work. 

His orchestra of over 40 musicians 

is reputed throughout Germany, and 

he is appreciated by the musicians both 

for his own talents as a performer and 

for his matchless skill in orchestral 

management. 

Some of the most important writings 

on music between 1739 and 1812 


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Geneviève Soly 

At her keyboard is Geneviève 

Soly, global authority on Graupner, and 

founder in 1987 of a Baroque ensemble 

called Les idées heureuses, literally “happy 

ideas.” 

The ensemble is based in Montreal 

and is increasingly popular. These excellent, 

lively and adventuresome musicians 

have espoused the Graupner project with 

the generosity and passion that has always 

been theirs. “Before the start of our great 

adventure we were playing chamber 

music and I wasn’t conducting,” says Soly. 

“Graupner brought about the restructuring 

of the group, and since he arrived I 

have been conducting.” 

The group’s current calendar includes 

an astonishing number of concerts, 

applauded by music lovers who are 

enthusiastic for Baroque music, and who 

admire the ensemble’s excellence. The 

concert series in France for next summer was already confirmed by January. The 

fall season will open with a prestigious concert preceded by a colloquium on the 

religious music of Graupner, on the subject of his cycle of The Seven Words of Christ 

on the Cross. This work was played in Montreal last year for the first time since 

Darmstadt in 1743. 

There are countless concerts either confirmed or in negotiation across Europe, 

in Canada and in the United States. I might also mention invitations to Geneviève 

Soly to participate in other major cultural events, including conferences and master 

classes. 

To the writing of articles on Soly’s favorite subject and the preparation of scores 

for publication can be added her impressive discography of music by Graupner and 

other composers. Currently in preparation is an instrumental series and one of 

partitas for the harpsichord, for, need I repeat, Geneviève Soly is first and foremost 

a musician. 

See Software Reviews in this issue for a look at two of her recordings. 

mention Christoph Graupner not only 

as a composer, but also as a virtuoso 

harpsichordist and an excellent conductor. 

His religious music is referred to as 

inspired, as are his harpsichord works 

and his fugues, and he is noted for his 

remarkable professional rigor. 

That makes his total eclipse even 

more difficult to understand. 

The impossible comparison 

Can Christoph Graupner be compared 

to Johann Sebastian Bach? 

Geneviève Soly finds the differences 

evident and enormous. True, Graupner 


was a genius and he did much for the 

progress of music. He was, for instance, 

the first to use the oboe d’amore, whose 

tender and caressing sound is that of 

all instruments of similar name. “That 

was four years before Bach used it,” says 

Soly, “and he did a great many things 

before Bach did.” It is clear that he was 

on the forefront of the development of 

harpsichord technique. Soly explains 

that she believes that Bach had a physical 

love for the organ, whereas Graupner 

had a physical love for the harpsichord. 

“Graupner wrote harpsichord music 

for his own pleasure, and not just as an 

obligation, as was so often the case with 

court composers.” It is no surprise, then, 

that he was able to draw sounds from his 

instrument never heard before. 

As for Bach, says Soly, “He is in 

a totally separate category. He was a 

musical genius along the lines of Mozart. 

Or of Monteverdi, who invented the 

Baroque style familiar to us even today. 

Or, in a different sphere, like Leonardo 

da Vinci. Bach is incomparable. His 

intimate understanding of music places 

him outside of any category. It is as if he 

had no physical body.” 

Mere physical constraints did not 

exist for him. Which does not prevent 

Christoph Graupner from being one of 

the most important harpsichord composers 

of the Baroque era. 

Let us define some terms. A manuscript 

is the original version of the 

composition. An autograph is a copy of 

the score made by the composer himself. 

The score may then have been engraved 

on a copper plate, which could then be 

coated with ink to make printed scores. 

Graupner was engraving his own plates, 

and Soly has several scores made from 

Graupner’s own plates, most precious 

documents whose very existence was 

unknown not long ago. “Nowadays,” she 

says, “Graupner’s cantatas come to me in 

autograph form. They can’t be referred 

to as publications, since Graupner was 

not a publisher.” She shows one of the 

autographs. Graupner was personally 

writing not only the full scores but also 

the parts for individual players. Professional 

copyists would then do the rest. 

There are therefore two sources, from 

Graupner’s own hand and from the 

copyists. 

Geneviève Soly would make more 

discoveries, aided by her renewed studies 

of the German language. She is today 

the reigning authority on Graupner, 

and it appears certain that his body of 

religious works is the largest to be found 

in Germany. Musical society and history 

will owe her an eternal debt. She and her 

ensemble, Les idées heureuses, program 

cantatas and sonatas by Graupner in 

their concerts, and have produced several 

recordings. They will do the same with 

concertos and many other fascinating 

works, including masses and oratorios. 

Operas too? Time will tell.

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and Gerard Rejskind 

The Artistry of Linda Rosenthal 

Linda Rosenthal 

FIM FIM022VD 

Lessard: An eclectic music lover is 

FIM’s Winston Ma, and he proposes 

recordings by particularly talented artists 

in diverse genres. 

This violin recording is in its third 

release by FIM. The first two were, 

respectively in SACD and XRCD. This 

one is encoded in HDCD, with the 

additional innovation of what FIM calls 

“Black Vinyl.” This is not the first CD 

with a label fashioned to resemble an LP, 

but what is unusual is that the reverse 

side is not silvery, as is usual, but black. 

The æsthetic aspect will please those 

who are, like us, nostalgic for the good 

old days of vinyl. 

Rosenthal, who enjoys a worldwide 

reputation, accompanied on this 

recording by the dazzling piano of Lisa 

Bergman, studied with the greats: Josef 

Gingold, Oscar Shumsky, and especially 

the 20 th Century violin icon Jascha 

Heifetz. It is claimed she was his most 

brilliant pupil, and there is little reason 

to doubt it. 

She plays pieces that are familiar, 

though one doesn’t tire of them, starting 

with the Hora staccato. The hora is a 

popular Jewish dance that has inspired 

numerous composers, including Romania’s 

Grigoras Dinicu. There have been 

numerous arrangements of the Dinicu 

hora, including this one by Heifetz, who 

used it in his own concerts. Like the 

pieces that follow it presents great technical 

difficulties, which Ms Rosenthal 

overcomes with ease. It is followed by a 

breathtaking Csardas, a traditional Hungarian 

Gypsy dance. The word, by the 

way, refers to a country inn, where each 

Sunday young girls perform traditional 

folk dances. The piece is more famous 

than its composer, Vittorio Monti, and 

I know few people who have not heard 

it at least once. 

Those first two pieces set the stage. 

There are then excerpts from Banjo and 

Fiddle (William Kroll), Fiddler on the 

Roof, From the Homeland (Smetana), the 

Rumanian Folk Dance (Bartok), Claude 

Debussy’s poetic reverie Beau soir, and 

Oror of Alan Hovhaness). The rhythms 

are mostly vibrant and vigorous, marked 

by iridescent flickers that are generously 

dynamic, with a contagious sensitivity, 

on an instrument that seems made for 

this music. A violin can be the best in 

the world, but it is the musician who has 

the last word. 

I listened several times, and each time 

I was surprised by the bowed effects, 

the bow seeming to do more than just 

touching or stroking the strings, but 

which seems to impregnate them with 

the artist’s spirit. 

I’d love to have met Linda Rosenthal 

in person, to let her know the pleasure 

she has given me. 

Mozart: Sinfonia Concertante 

Igor Oistrakh/David Oistrakh/Moscow 

Philharmonic 

FIM XR24 069 

Lessard: With the Moscow Philharmonic 

under the baton of the celebrated 

Russian conductor Kyril Kondrashin, 

two Russian musicians, father and son, 

serve up a pair of famous Mozart pieces. 

The skill of the two Oistrakhs on the 

violin long ago made them famous on the 

world stage, and the rich orchestration of 

the first of these two works make of this 

recording a rare success. The light and 

captivating violin of Igor and the warm 

viola of papa David united to enchant us 

with fine lyrical flights, or with a sort of 

dialogue between their two instruments, 

which share perfect understanding, 

grace, lightness and expressiveness. 

The pièce de résistance on the 

program is the Sinfonia Concertante 

K364, which dates from 1779 and is 

considered one of Mozart’s best pieces. 

It is said that, on a visit to Paris, Mozart 

heard an example of this concerto style 

dating from the Baroque era and which 

remained popular. With this piece he 

reinvented the genre. It is often performed, 

and neither performers nor the 

public seem to tire of it. 

It is pertinent to call this a mature 

work, as if one can speak of maturity of 

a composer who will die at 35, halfway 

through a normal lifespan. He was 23, 

and it was a dark period in his life, when 

his fame among the powerful was behind 

him, and he was facing his mother’s 

death an a thousand little domestic 

troubles. Ah, astonishing Mozart, seemingly 

using his music to transcend life’s 

troubles! 

The Allegro maestoso is full of dazzling 

verve, after which we are plunged into 

a poignant Andante of incomparable 

depth. It is here that you can take the 

measure of the musicality and refinement 

of our two musicians. Here and 

there — no surprise considering their 

nationality — their playing seems to 

evoke the Slavic soul. Deliberate? No 

matter, they make Mozart sing with their 

bows. 

Throughout the Presto, the musi-

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cians deploy brilliant themes, filled with 

elegance. 

The CD ends with the three movements 

of the Duo for Violin in G, K423, in 

which the violin dominates the melodic 

line, but without overwhelming the 

viola, which develops its own themes of 

great richness. 

This XRCD production by First 

Impressions Music was done by going 

back to the original 1963 master tape. 

FIM’s Winston Ma calls the original 

recording one of the very best productions 

in the history of recording. You’ll 

listen to it with delight. 

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Mozart Sonates 

Ludwig Sémerjian 

Atma ACD2 2246 

Rejskind: For many years there has 

been a debate about the pertinence of 

the pianoforte — the early piano — as 

opposed to the modern piano. Is it not 

best to listen to Beethoven and Mozart 

on the pianos they themselves knew and 

composed for? Perhaps. On the other 

hand, if Beethoven could return and put 

his hands on the keyboard of a modern 

Bösendorfer or Fazioli, would he not be 

thrilled? 

I don’t propose to offer the solution 

to this debate, but I can say good things 

about a pianist who espouses the first 

proposition, at least up to a point. On 

this CD this young Canadian pianist 

plays three of Mozart’s mature sonatas 

(the K333, 282 and 330) on a period 

piano. It isn’t a piano Mozart himself 

would ever have seen. He died in 1791, 

and the pianoforte Sémerjian plays 

is from 1817. It is, however, a twin to 

another piano (unplayable today) that 

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belonged to Beethoven! 

It should be said that there are a lot 

of Beethoven’s pianos out there. That’s 

because the English piano maker John 

Broadwood, each time he brought out 

a new model (which he did nearly every 

year) would send one to Beethoven. 

Sémerjian notes that Mozart is the 

oldest piano composer whose works 

remain in major repertoires today. 

Because he knew the piano from its 

infancy, he saw it develop over his short 

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lifetime, and his style of composition 

evolved with the fortepiano’s technical 

capabilities. The K282 is from 1775, 

when Mozart was 19 (but of course he 

was an adult long before that age), and 

the two others from 1782 and 1784. Even 

during that interval, the pianoforte did 

develop, in particular picking up greater 

dynamic power. It is evident that Mozart 

had grown more sophisticated by the 

time he wrote the later sonatas, and 

his greater use of dynamic contrast is 


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clear, with a masterly use of rhythmic 

variations — what would later be called 

rubato — and all the dynamics of which 

his instrument is capable. 

Also contributing to the pleasure is 

Goyette’s engineering. Sémerjian’s piano 

is natural sized, neither just a spot in the 

centre nor an outsized monster going 

from one wall to the other. Reverberation 

is audible, but it does not dominate. 

This is, from every point of view, a 

wonderful recording. 

seven years ago by engineers who are 

not those of Analekta. An even greater 

disappointment is Kuerti’s playing. The 

passages that should be lyrical are played 

ponderously, as are indeed all of these 

works. 

For comparison, I’ve just listened to 

the Gilels version of the concertos, with 

Jochum and the Royal Philharmonic. 

Incredible how different two readings 

can be! I always hate to be negative, but 

I owe it to you to let you know. 

undoubtedly related to what the pianoforte 

itself was capable of. 

I’ve heard both Mozart and Beethoven 

played on old pianofortes, particularly 

Broadwoods, and most of them are 

in doubtful shape, letting you hear 

the creaking and groans of the aged 

mechanical parts along with the notes. 

That’s the case of several of the pianos 

of Paul Badura-Skoda, who favors pianofortes 

and plays them as though he were 

channeling the composer. Despite the 

clarity of this recording (about which 

more in a moment), no such noises can 

be heard. 

The pianoforte played here is in the 

Beethovenhaus Museum in Bonn. Naturally, 

you don’t entrust an instrument 

like this to UPS, and so Sémerjian traveled 

to the museum, which has a concert 

hall, for this recording. So therefore did 

Johanne Goyette, who owns this Canadian 

label and does its engineering. 

The result is an hour of sheer magic. 

Ludwig Sémerjian is young but (like 

Mozart I’m tempted to say) he plays 

with astonishing maturity. His tempi 

are quite quick, but the playing is 


Brahms Piano Concertos and Solo 

Works 

Kuerti/Orch. Métropolitain 

Analekta AN 2 9205-7 

Lessard: Quite a collection across three 

CD’s. The first two contain the first two 

of Brahms’ four piano concertos, and the 

third different Brahms works for solo 

piano. All of them are played by Canadian 

pianist Anton Kuerti, accompanied 

on the concertos by the Orchestre Métropolitain 

du Grand Montréal, under its 

then conductor Joseph Rescigno. 

Much has been written about the 

Concerto No. 1, which was little appreciated 

at first, but which was eventually 

adopted by the intelligentsia of the world 

musical community. It is a piece that is 

sumptuous, sometimes shattering, at 

other times warm and moving, written 

when Brahms was 24. The second 

concerto is from much later. 

This version greatly disappointed me, 

and my disappointment is due neither to 

the value of the music nor to the conducting 

of maestro Rescigno, who I’ve always 

respected and whose passage through 

Montreal was all too brief. Rather I’m 

disappointed with the recording, done 

Ghosts 

Boyd & Philharmonia à Vent 

Klavier K11150 

Rejskind: Wind band music seems to be 

a category of its own, and record stores 

have yet to figure out what to do with it. 

Is it classical? Sometimes it is. Popular 

music? Sometimes, but it will do little 

good to file it next to Madonna and 

Nickelback. World Beat? No, no! 

So let’s put aside the little boxes and 

consider this recording, by the Philharmonia 

à Vent Wind Orchestra, on its 

merits. Which are many. 

Ghosts is a suite of nine pieces by Stephen 

McNeff, on what have to be called 

haunting themes. The first of the pieces, 

titled The Haunting, begins with the 

rattling of distant chains which appear 

to be way beyond the walls of the room. 

But don’t turn up the volume too much, 

because the passage that follows will tax 

your system’s (and your ears’) dynamic 

capabilities. The horrific crescendo 

seems to go on forever. 

But I am not using the word “horrific” 

as a criticism, for that is entirely the 

appropriate tone. Several of the pieces, 

including the second one, The Gray Lady, 

could be music for horror films, if the

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moviemakers actually had the budget 

for music like this. 

Some elements in the suite have gay 

moments, such as The Polish Sailor, but all 

have at least an undertone of foreboding, 

something that keeps you from relaxing, 

which keeps you looking behind you. 

McNeff is Irish, and I was not entirely 

surprised to hear that, when he was a student 

in London, he was composing music 

for student film productions. Theatre 

music is his great love. It figures. 

Though Ghosts is the best thing on this 

recording, there is much more. There is 

an interesting Capriccio by Gustav Holst, 

best known for his tone poem The Planets. 

There is a suite by Richard Rodney 

Bennett, Morning Music, which bears 

listening. Christhoper (not a misprint) 

Marshall’s L’homme Armé Variations is 

less interesting, and I couldn’t get all the 

way through it. 

I did mention the sound, didn’t I? 

I’ve heard a lot of wind band recordings 

over the years. The sound on this one is 

a summit. I recommend it warmly…if 

that’s the word for a disc titled Ghosts. 

Journey 

Grzegorz Krawiec 

M•A Mo68A 

Lessard: It was at the dawn of the 

Romantic era that a plump new instrument 

with a powerful sound arrived on 

the musical stage. It was the pianoforte, 

which quickly outclassed all other keyboard 

instruments but the pipe organ, to 

suit the needs of the ever large concert 

halls. The harpsichord survived only as 

an instrument for period music. 

The guitar was also eclipsed, serving 

to accompany voice or sometimes as a 

continuo, or now and then in chamber 

music. No matter. Some exceptional 

guitar makers, musicians and composers 

came together to create a new repertoire 

that could give the instrument its second 

wind. In Spain in particular, Francisco 

Tárrega (1852-1909) encouraged guitarists 

to establish a new style of Spanish 

music. Its seeds were carried to other 

lands by troubadours and travelling 

musicians, and it took route across 

Europe. 

This CD from M•A, which is meticulous 

in its choice of music and in the 

care it takes in recording, is entirely 

dedicated to solo guitar, and invites us to 

a musical voyage across Europe through 

the Baroque, Classical and romantic 

periods. Our guides are the talented 

young guitarist Grzegorz Krawiec, and 

the composers who emulated Tárrega 

and created magnificent variations on 

deathless melodies, as well as music 

written specifically for the guitar. 

It opens with the Carnaval de Venecia, 

as imagined by Paganini, who drew 

deliriously from his six strings unique 

effects. The illustrious sorcerer wrote for 

the guitar as well as the violin, though 

the six variations on Paganini’s music are 

from the pen of Tárrega. Like Paganini, 

he too worked tirelessly to provoke surprise 

by imagining countless effects. 

What is evident from the first notes 

is Krawiec’s adoration of his instrument. 

He produces notes of rare beauty, the 

strings caressed rather than pinched, 

When most companies are trying to outsource their 

manufacturing to countries with the lowest labour cost, Air Tight 

still insists in making their products by hand in Osaka Japan, 

using the finest materials available. 

Like a high-end Swiss watch with its chamfered 

movement and cotes de Genève decoration, Air Tight amplifiers 

are hand crafted by experienced engineers like a piece of art, 

both inside and out, one piece at a time. And of course they 

sound fabulous, winning top honours in various hi-fi magazines 

including Stereophile and The Absolute Sound. But at this level of 

competition, fabulous sound should be a given! 

Air Tight, for the discerning few. 

Canadian distributor 

Qinceton Corporation 

www.quinceton.com 

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though in a style that is not all flowery, 

adorable glissandos, pregnant pauses, an 

exquisite dynamic range, an exacerbated 

sensitivity, all for our greater pleasure. 

As the recording proceeds, the 

charm continues to operate. There are 


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superb works for solo guitar by France’s 

Francis Kleynjans (1951), Italy’s Nuccio 

D’Angelo (1955), Germany’s Hanz 

Werner Henze (1926), Hungary's Johann 

Kaspár Mertz (early 19 th Century), and 

Poland’s Sylwester Laskowski (1973). 

The finale is a set of grand variations 

from Jan Nepomucen Bobrowicz on 

La ci darem la mano from Mozart’s Don 

Giovanni. 

The recording was done in the 

church of St. Mark in Cracow, Poland. If 

the recording quality is remarkable and 

the compositions splendid, the guitarist 

here featured is absolutely exceptional. 

Marin Marais: Three suites 

Alvares/Alarcon/Costoyas 

M•A Mo69A 


Lessard: This recording brings us back 

to the film Tous les Matins du Monde, 

directed by Alain Corneau in the early 

90’s, on the life of Marin Marais (1656- 

1728). Is it not thanks to the film that 

so many music lovers discovered this 

immortal violist and composer, not to 

mention his instrument, the bass viol? 

The CD box (which is cardboard rather 

than plastic, which I appreciate, and I 

would have appreciated it even more if 

the text included were readable) includes 

Le Tombeau de Monsieur de Sainte-Colombe 

(a title enigmatic enough to raise healthy 

curiosity, despite the gross misspelling 

on the booklet) and three suites from 

Marais’ Pièces de viol. The three begin 

with a prelude and are of different mood, 

serious or gay but always pleasant. 

The Tombeau (the grave) of the title 

refers to Marin Marais’ teacher, the 

celebrated Sainte-Colombe, who was, 

you may recall from the film, insanely 

jealous of his pupil. The jealousy seems 

surprising when we know the admiration 

Marais bore for him, going so far as to 

hide under the foundations to hear him 

play and sound out his secrets. 

Marin Marais wrote several operas, 

greatly influenced by Lully, but it was 

chiefly as a musician and composer for 

the bass viol that he was so famous in his 

time. The interest in him is perpetuated 

thanks to exceptional musicians like the 

one on this recording, Andrea de Carlo. 

Bursting forth from his instruments are 

ornamental notes, trills, and all sorts of 

effects that recall the human voice, as 

only a true virtuoso can do. For the Suite 

in D Minor for two viols, Sergio Alavarez 

joins De Carlo. Leonardo Farcia Alarcon 

plays harpsichord and Dolores Costoyas 

the theorb, with direction by Rogerio 

Gonçalves. 

Lovers of this music from the end 

of the Renaissance and the beginning 

of the Baroque will be delighted by this 

recording, whose sound qualities are 

irreproachable. For my part, the more I 

listen the more I get into it, and more I 

find elements that are touching, such as 

the gaiety of certain passages, or in other 

cases an austerity that can be considered 

peaceful. 

At once for musical and technical 

reasons, this album deserves a place in 

your CD collection. Don’t hesitate, for 

life is short, and we need to sprinkle on 

it all of the happiness we can, to bring 

out the sun in the midst of clouds. 

Two by 

Graupner 

For more about this composer, see Finding 

Graupner in this issue. 

Graupner: Instrumental & Vocal 

Music vol.1 

Soly & Les idées heureuses 

Analekta FL 2 3162 

Rejskind: The first time I listened to 

a recording of the music of Christoph

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Graupner — and it was in fact this 

one — the question I wanted above all 

to answer was this: is Graupner really a 

long lost treasure, or is he a mere curiosity, 

another of those generic composers who is 

forgotten for good reason? 

I didn’t have to listen very far to 

conclude that the first supposition is the 

correct one. This recording, one of eight 

from Geneviève Soly so far, opens with 

a church cantata, Ach Gott und Herr. If 

you expect church music to be heavy and 

even lugubrious, Graupner can surprise 

you. There is a joyous lightness to the 

two Arias and the Recitativo. Should 

I make a comparison to Bach? This is 

closer to Bach’s secular cantatas, which 

were crowd pleasers. There was no 

gloom in Darmstadt even on Sunday 

morning on the evidence. 

The Concerto for Bassoon, Two Violins, 

Viola and Bass is a delight. The bassoon 

is playful, which suits its character well. 

The music is full of attractive melodies. 

Impossible here to compare with Bach. 

He is closer to Handel if anything, 

and the final Allegro of the concerto 

could have come from him. Handel’s 

best-known music was intended for the 

commercial theatre, and he had gone to 

Italy to study the Italian style Londoners 

couldn’t get enough of. Graupner’s 

background was utterly different, but I 

suspect he had an ear for the styles that 

were going around. 

The Sonata per Cembalo e Violino en sol 

mineur doesn’t have the same rollicking 

lightness, but its themes are compelling, 

and they are developed with rare skill. 

In the Sonata a Quattro, I was similarly 

struck by the originality and beauty of 

the themes and the deft way they are 

developed. Of course one can expect 

Soly didn’t select his worst music from 

his vast output, but even so one has to 

be impressed. No wonder the prince was 

willing to pay what it took to keep him 

from leaving. 

Soly’s ensemble is excellent, led by her 

own sure-footed harpsichord. Soprano 

Ingrid Schmithüsen, who sings in the 

cantata, has a haunting, ethereal voice 

that seems to float over the orchestra. 

The sound is gorgeous and serves the 

music well. If you’re up to discovering 

a composer you’ve never heard before, 

this is the recording to start with. 

Graupner: Partitas for Harpsichord, 

vol.1 

Geneviève Soly 

Analekta FL 2 3109 

Rejskind: Soly is a much-praised harpsichordist 

whose reputation did not 

begin with her rediscovery of the music 

of Christoph Graupner. She is first and 

foremost a performer, and it was almost 

accidentally that she veered off into 

musicology, as you’ll see from Reine 

Lessard’s article Finding Graupner in 

this issue. 

Most of her eight Graupner recordings 

(so far) are of solo harpsichord, and 

Graupner was so prolific she can probably 

keep the series going for a long time. 

Note the “Volume 1” in the title. She is 

up to Volume 5 now. 

As with the previous collection of 

orchestral and vocal music, you can’t 

help noticing that Graupner imagination 

was a nearly bottomless fount of melodies. 

And he took the best care of them, 

placing them in setting after setting. 

The Partita X in A Minor that opens the 

disc has eight pieces, each named after 

a dance: the allemande, the sarabande, 

the bourrée, etc. Unlike what you find 

in the partitas of some composers, these 

are not unrelated pieces bound together 

for convenience. They are thematically 

related, and I found myself realizing I 

had heard the theme before. Yes, but in 

a different setting. 

There is another observation I think 

needs to be made. Many composers 

write to a formula, and once you know 

the formula you can often predict what 

is coming next. That was even true 

of Mozart, imagine! I found myself 

mentally predicting what Graupner was 

about to do with some of the variations 

in these partitas…and then he surprised 

me and did something else. Delightful! 

Soly plays these partitas wonderfully 

well, and I can affirm that without 

having heard anyone else play Graupner. 

Her playing espouses the often surprising 

forms Graupner gave his thematic 

developments, and you don’t have to 

strain to understand what he was trying 

to do. This is exceptional music played 

by an exceptional musician. 


Gossip&News 

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Perhaps some enterprising college 

will set up a Sony BMG chair of crisis 

management. Sony is…well, you know. 

BMG is the German company that 

years ago swallowed RCA Victor. Now 

that they and the labels they own are 

together, they have shown off their management 

skill in a fashion that will, we 

can only hope, give the entire industry 

pause. 

Like other major record companies, 

Sony BMG has been hurting, watching 

its sales of Compact Discs shrinking 

year after year. The industry likes to 

blame this sad state of events on file 

sharing over the Internet. And that is 

certainly an important factor, though if 

you produce 6% fewer titles, and if your 

sales then drop 6%, there could be other 

factors at play. 

For many years the industry has 

searched for a magic bullet to prevent 

copying of its recordings. Some years 

back Columbia (now part of Sony BMG) 

hatched a plot to filter out a very small 

band of frequencies in the upper midrange, 

around 3 kHz. A mandatory chip 

inserted in all new cassette decks would 

stop recording if there was no signal in 

that band. Need we even begin to list 

what is wrong with this idea? 

Now that digital copying of CDs is 

the issue, there have been several new 

anti-copying plans. Nearly all are easy 

to defeat. Most will prevent discs from 

playing on certain players, and especially 

on computer disc drives. 

Sony BMG’s system, known as XCP, 

attempts to get around that by installing 

a program right on the computer, whose 

role is to allow playing the disc but limit 

multiple copying. XCP is a “rootkit,” a 

program that installs itself at the root 

level of a computer hard drive, invisible 

to both the user and any anti-virus 

software, so that it cannot be removed. 

Why would the company want to 

make its program invisible to anti-virus 

utilities? Because — many angry users 

Gossip&News 

The Sony School of PR 


quickly jumped to this conclusion — 

XCP is a virus! 

Or perhaps a Trojan Horse. The 

rootkit’s very invisibility opens an 

opportunity for other malware to sneak 

onto a computer undetected: it’s like 

entering a restricted building right 

behind someone who has the key. And 

XCP was worrisome enough in its own 

right. The rumor got around that XCP 

could “phone home,” and let Sony BMG 

find out what you were up to. Would 

that mean they could know if you used 

BitTorrent? Or if you burned a copy 

of one of the company’s discs? Sony 

BMG denied this was possible, then 

backtracked and denied that it was being 

done. 

So what do you do when you’re faced 

with what shapes up to be a major PR 

disaster? You figure things will get worse 

before they get better, and thus you do 

what you can to make them worse as 

quickly as possible. 

1) You refuse to acknowledge any 

problem, having an executive declare 

that, “Most people don't even know what 

a rootkit is, so why should they care 

about it?” 

2) You post a program on your Web 

site with what you claim is an uninstaller 

for XCP. 

3) When it is discovered that the 

“uninstaller” is actually an updater that 

merely installs the latest version of XCP, 

you then post another patch. 

4) It turns out the patch doesn’t get 

rid of your malware, but merely renders 

it visible, so that users can find their own 

way to get rid of it. 

5) You offer to mail a virus-free copy 

of a CD to any consumer who mails back 

the infected one, but that leaves hundreds 

of thousands (millions?) of infected 

discs in stores. There are 52 XCP titles, 

by artists such as Bette Middler, Céline 

Dion, Cyndi Lauper and Rosanne Cash. 

And this just before Christmas. Now 

your artists are mad at you too. 

6) You then post an actual uninstaller, 

except that it doesn’t uninstall 

everything. Says the company: “This 

uninstaller will not remove the detection 

tool itself. The detection tool can be 

deleted manually in the normal manner.” 

Oh right, the “normal manner.” By the 

way, if you do use the uninstaller, protected 

CDs won’t play anymore. 

7) In the meantime, continue to 

worry your customers (the ones who 

have actually paid for your products) by 

non-denial denials on line, such as: “The 

player on the disc features a Web banner 

that uses standard Web techniques to 

communicate with a Sony BMG Web 

server to display additional Web content 

related to the specific CD title — not to 

monitor your online activity or collect 

personal information.” Right, like by 

now we trust you to tell us the truth! 

8) Once users discover that the music 

can’t be transferred to an iPod, merely 

the world’s most popular portable player, 

you blame Apple and put a link to Apple’s 

Web site on your own site. 

9) For customers who won’t take 

that for an answer, reveal that there is 

a workaround, but to get it you have to 

fill out a questionnaire with your name 

and the store you bought the disc from. 

After all, if customers can’t trust Sony 

BMG, whom can they trust? 

10) When it is revealed that you have 

another 20 million discs “protected” by 

another anti-copy program, MediaMax, 

start again at point one: deny there’s 

a problem, then post an updater that 

supposedly removes the vulnerability 

introduced by MediaMax, and when 

that updater turns out to be flawed (see 

point 3), post another one. 

11) Don’t mention any of this on your 

individual label Web sites. Make your 

customers do research. 

12) If Steve Jobs gets mad about the 

iPod issue, he might drop Sony BMG 

recordings from the iTunes store, so let 

Macintosh users play your discs all they 

want without that bothersome malware. 

They wouldn’t do anything like make 

copies, would they? 

There’ll be a quiz after class.

Gossip&News 

Feedback 

The Return of KOJ 

“KOJ” is of course 

Keith O. Johnson, 

long the soul of Reference 

Recordings. 

W hen the Dorian 

Group picked up RR 

three years ago, that 

was to mean lots of 

budget for Keith to 

continue creating his 

wonderful recordings. 

It didn’t. Instead there 

was bankruptcy court, 

seizure by the trustees 

and the apparent end 

of one of the audiophile 

world’s bestloved 

labels. 

But not for long. The former owners 

of the label had not been paid by Dorian, 

and so they are once again the owners. 

At CES in January, the Reference 

Recordings was prominently displayed, 

and we ran across such RR people as Jan 

Mancuso and Keith Johnson (sorry about 

the old picture, we didn’t snap a recent 

one). 

For the moment the newest RR 

releases were taped before the Dorian 

nightmare, but Keith expects to unpack 

his microphones between now and next 

summer. Is he looking forward to it? 

“I’m nervous,” he says. “I haven’t done 

a recording for some time.” 

The reborn RR Web site says the 

company will not be doing SACD 

releases, because colleagues have warned 

Keith off that. He looks hopefully to 

the new media (Blu-Ray?), but for the 

moment he will release his recordings 

in Red Book CD format. 

And what about HDCD, the technology 

that Microsoft bought and pretty 

much abandoned? 

Yes, all the new CDs will be HDCD, 

including any re-releases, but Keith 

will be doing his recording work at the 

maximum resolution possible. That used 

to mean 24 bits and a sampling rate of 

88.2 kHz (because it scales down so 

neatly to CD’s 44.1). He will now be 

recording at 192 kHz, so that he will 

be ready for whatever wonderful new 

format is released. Keith is enthusiastic 

about digital now, 

because he is aware of 

a cruel fact of analog: 

tapes deteriorate with 

time. 

“It depends on the 

brand of tape,” he 

says. “Certain professional 

tapes were 

certified for long life, 

but deteriorated after 

only a few years.” 

Example? Keith 

asked whet her we 

were familiar with 

his Professor Johnson’s 

Astounding Sound Show 

(RR-7). Yes, in fact our store carried 

the LP until last year. “Have you ever 

heard the 45 rpm version?” We hadn’t. 

“Between that one and the later 33 version, 

it’s day and night. It’s not because 

of the difference in mastering speed, but 

because of deterioration of the master 

tape between the two versions.” 

Nor is tape quality the only variable. 

It’s well known that stored tapes 

ultimately suffer from “print-through”: 

the magnetic pattern bleeds through 

from one tape layer to the adjacent layers, 

and when you play it you can hear a faint 

pre and post-echo. Not so well known 

is that the magnetic pattern also bleeds 

longitudinally, along the length of the 

tape, blunting the transients. “I used to 

record test signals on an unused part of 

each tape,” says Keith. “When I look at 

them on a scope today, I can see that, at 

low frequencies, the signal has spread 

out. It’s too bad.” 

Could that explain the fact that some 

famous RR recordings re-released in 

HDCD cannot match the sound of the 

original LP. “Yes. It depends on the state 

of the master tape. That was the beauty 

of the LP medium. If you didn’t abuse it 

you could play the LP decades later, and 

it would sound just the way it did when 

it was made.” 

We’re eager for Keith to fire up his 

gear once again and begin working his 

magic. He has made some of the greatest 

recordings we have ever heard. We think 

he’s just getting started. 

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It’s hardly a secret that proper 

loudspeaker placement can make 

a huge difference to the illusion of 

depth of recordings. You may have 

tried a tiny change, perhaps just moving 

a speaker a couple of centimeters, or 

toeing the speakers in slightly more…or 

less. And you heard a difference. 

Indeed, so great are the differences 

and so easy is it to find this out for 

yourself that I am surprised more people 

don’t take the time to experiment. If you 

haven’t taken a day to try variations on 

your speaker placement, do yourself a 

favor. 

UHF has written about how to 

place speakers, of course. The acoustics 

chapter in my book The World of High 

Fidelity includes a primer on that very 

topic. Some speaker manufacturers offer 

guides to placing speakers, some of them 

helpful, others leading you in what I consider 

to be the wrong direction. At best 

these guides can be no more than starting 

points, because, as just mentioned, 

even a small variation can make a large 

difference in the sound you hear. 

I should add that many guides to 

speaker placement are…how can I put 

it politely? Anal retentive? Their most 

evident virtue is symmetry. That can be 

good, but then again perhaps not. Let me 

tell you about an experience I had a long 

time ago, when I was a student. 

My university had just acquired a new 

student-run FM station, with a control 

room completely outfitted by RCA. The 

standard RCA monitor at the time was 

intended to be mounted high on the 

wall, with the drivers pointed down at 

about 45 degrees. In a typical installation, 

they would be placed just above the 

soundproof studio to the talk booth. 

But that wasn’t possible in this case, 

because the architect, who had read up 

on audio acoustics, had designed the 

studio without any parallel surfaces (he 

had a great time getting that past the city 

building inspector). Because the window 

was in what would have been a corner if 

the control room had really been square, 

there was no space for the monitors. So 

the engineers placed them behind the 


State of the Art 


operator, each on a different wall, which 

were at about 90 degrees to each other. 

In other words, one was midway up the 

north wall, and the other midway up the 

east wall. 

Well, I took a look at that and I knew 

it just couldn’t work. That’s just not how 

you place stereo speakers, right? So what 

happened was a surprise. 

What happened is that those two 

“misplaced” monitors projected the 

strongest, most stable stereo image I have 

ever heard without wearing headphones. 

You could sit absolutely anywhere in 

the room and you heard stereo. The 

sense of space, whether natural or bogus 

reverb, was palpable. “Listening to that 

is an experience,” said another student 

broadcaster. 

Of course you’re thinking that these 

were professional broadcast monitors, 

and they must be pretty good. Not 

so. Not long after I worked at another 

FM station which, by coincidence, had 

exactly the same all-RCA package, 

including the monitors, which were positioned 

the way the company intended: 

above the window. The word “crap” 

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comes to mind. And since shortly after 

I became the station’s chief engineer, I 

got a good look at what was inside. Each 

unit had a single driver, a cabinet made of 

whatever cheap suitcases are made from, 

with an open back…at least open unless 

the speaker was flush against the wall. 

So why had they sounded so terrific 

at the student station? It had to be the 

placement. But why did that placement 

even work? 

If you want to try this for yourself 

it’s easy to do, though you might have 

to substitute a longer length of cheap 

cable for whatever speaker cable you 

ordinarily use. Just for fun, try it. Place 

one speaker in the middle of the wall, 

pointing straight out, the other in the 

middle of the wall to the right or left, also 

pointing straight out. You don’t have to 

sit right at their focal point. You can, in 

fact, sit wherever you please. 

Don’t be too surprised if your audiophile-grade 

speakers are not at their best. 

Right against the wall may be wrong 

for them, as it is for most speakers, and 

listening to them way off axis is probably 

not right either. But remember what you 

hear, because it will help you in searching 

for the perfect placement. At the very 

least, you may well cast off the idea that 

everything must be symmetrical. 

In my case I have often used a variant 

on this scheme, with the speakers placed 

asymmetrically relative to the rear wall. 

That has enabled me, at times, to get 

good sound, and especially a plausible 

stereo image, from what shaping up to 

be evil acoustics. 

If your speakers are properly designed 

(and as my experience shows, even if 

they’re not), proper positioning should 

give you a very strong stereo image that 

doesn’t require you to be sitting right 

at some “sweet spot.” It should let you 

hear the space that has been captured 

by the recording engineers. A mono 

signal should seem, unambiguously, 

to be coming from a phantom centre 

speaker. 

Listen for yourself. My own revelation 

emerged from a happy accident, and 

perhaps yours will too.

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