Putting Curtains in the Man-Cave

He's Doomed. When you look at various forums, and talk to audiophiles, there is a common mythical beast, the so-called Giant Killer. The Giant Killer means many things to many people, but in essence, it is a variation of the "something for nothing" but its story is one of hope that there exists a combinations of improbable engineering successes, and marketing blunders that offers incredible performance for a pittance. Audio reviewers talk about Giant Killers in hushed tones, audio enthusiasts look for these deals (usually fruitlessly) in new and used gear to try to find that magic component that would be like a sprinkle of pixie dust to suddenly propel their system into a new category of performance. As you can guess, we're skeptical about these so-called Giant Killers (heneforth referred to as GK in this entry), and think the sweat, time and effort would be best spent making synergistic upgrades, careful experiments with cables and room treatments and ...

It used to be that every single receiver or preamp had a built in phonostage.  The way it used to work is that you would by a turntable, plug it in, and start spinning records.  For the audio enthusiast, there was always low output moving coil cartridges, and the resultant step-up-transformer you could use to present a signal to the phono input, but the built in was always used.  When the CD came to dominate, that the good 'ol built-in phono input went away.  A minor proliferation of external phono stages began as analog declined, but it left the mass market's consciousness as the silver disc rose in domination.  Given the people sticking to their vinyl through the near death of the medium were mostly performance oriented enthusiasts.  The state of the art playback for analog rose considerably (both in performance and price) during this dark time.  Now that vinyl is beginning to flirt with becoming mainstream again, brands are introducing their own ta...

There is a current puzzle in audio since the introduction of CD. While the measurements of digital are in many cases an order of magnitude better than vinyl (and audio  Skeptics  are fond of gleefully pointing this out), yet in the end, vinyl tends to sound more natural and more real most of the time (which subjectivist use to rub the Skeptics nose in it). While we don't need to rehash the millions of words lost in the ongoing argument, I think it is easily summarized by three statements below: The audio Skeptics have made a basic assumption that digital audio reproduction is essentially perfect, and have stubbornly maintained this idea The audio Subjectivists have not adequately defined high resolution well enough to inform study. Neither Skeptics nor Subjectivists have been able to acknowledge that our understanding of sound perception is incomplete and its study and revisions are ongoing.  This is either through ignorance or stubbornness. In a perusal ...

The Rondo Bronze in all the Glory One of the largest sources of distortion and excellence in any LP setup is the cartridge.  We're big fans of Ortofon, and we took a big leap first jumping from a Grado Sonata1 to a Denon DL-103R then to the underappreciated, excellent Ortofon Rondo Bronze. We listen to a lot of vinyl, around 8-10 hours a week.  But keep meticulous care of our records and clean the needle with every side of a disk.  This means that at best we'd have 1500 hours of enjoyment.  At our rate that is right around 3 years.  We're into year 2, and while everything still sounds fantastic, it is time to start the long arduous process of finding a replacement, since in the mean-time, Ortofon has discontinued the Rondo line.  They have consolidated most of their LOMC offerings into two series:  "Quintet" and "Cadenza" I can have the Rondo Bronze retipped (3rd party), or I can replace it with a Quintet or Cadenza.  Or look elsewhere, but ...

We dug out the trusty Denon DL-103R and mounted it on the Acoustic Research "Arche" Headshell ... and got an incredible musical presentation once about 15 hours had passed with some fussing and adjusting. The Denon's sound will continue improving as your tone-arm and turntable get upgraded, but does justice to what you already have.  It responds very well to careful alignment, but it's forgiving of less careful alignment.  It can go toe to toe with carts costing multiples of its US$379 MSRP (Street price slightly less).  If the basic sound is to your liking, there is also a small cottage industry that takes the DL103 and 103R and hotrods them, too.  The Denon DL-103R is not a perfect cartridge by any means, but it is one of those rare true "giant killers" where you have to spend a lot more to do better, and makes you ask "why bother" when considering such an upgrade. We were happy to recommend it earlier, we're happy to double down on...

The era of the vinyl bargain is over.  While we might long for the time when we could get an album for $1-2 each is gone and dead on a wave of technology revival that was both unlikely and astonishing.  While this wave might burn itself out, or go on to be a dominant media again is anyone's guess.  But for the foreseeable future, there won't be the killer Thrift Shop Finds of LP as even the charities realize they can get some real money for their copy of Simon and Garfunkel's Greatest Hits in mint condition (when 10-15 years ago, they'd be lucky to sell it for $1).  But like the Iron Throne in an unnamed overly long and bloody TV show, a new bargain sits proudly, if uneasily:  the CD. Look at this?  Vinyl from $15 (used), MP3 $14, and Lowly CD? $8!  All for your selection on Amazon in this example.  Funny thing, CD.  Was supposed to be "perfect sound forever" and after it's initial teething pains proved it worth by being able to do thi...

The audio family at home, might choose to spin a record (LP standard launched in 1948, stereo about a decade later), play a CD (1982), or playback a digital file (c1996) as they settle in for the evening.  For us, we tend towards solid state amplification (c1955), but there is nothing wrong with vacuum tubes (c1920).  We have a dynamic speaker (c1930) but we know that electrostatic (c1955), ribbons (c1960-1970) or horns (c1920) could be there, too. While you could go through the house and do a similar exercise and see that most things in a house aside form the structure itself, are from the 20th and 21st century. Most of the basic technology found in a house was developed before 1970, if not before World War II. But ... given how white hot the electronics sector has been since World War II (really since before World War I actually!), it is a little surprising that a domestic setup to listen to music is mostly unchanged over that time.  A stereo system in 1957 is m...

Birch and Mahogany Plinth -- in the Project/Music Hall world not obtainable unless you spend twice as much.  FWIW. "What this country needs is a really good five-cent cigar" ~ T. Marshall "What this country needs, is a decent 5W Amp!" ~ P. W. Klipsch The box arrived on our doorstep a few days earlier than we had figured - it had taken less than a week.  I had been in multiple IM sessions with Scott Bingaman, the President of Deer Park Distributors (The exclusive distributors of Crosley Turntables to the US and Canada), who had indicated that they were onto something big, something that was a real step up for them from their traditional retro-styled products. "This won't be sold at Target or Urban Outfitters.  It'll be primarily sold online, at indie record stores and high end dealers - targeted at a younger audience looking to move up," Scott said.  After I had asked how much better it would be, given the reputation Crosley has in au...

If you follow this blog, you'll have noticed the posts have dropped off to nearly nothing.  I suppose it's the effect you get when the talk is more about gear and sound, and less about the music is plays.  We've strayed from our mission of encouraging people to let the whole family enjoy the fruits (music) of a good stereo, and started doing the easy thing.  Reviewing gear and posting opinions. So, we're also thinking about our focus in this avocation.  The importance of quality music reproduction won't be abandoned, but we plan on pulling in more music, and focussing more on how to jump in to the fun.   Stay Tuned.

By Guest author:  Darren "Clickbait" Vogue (A parody of recent events by shameless journalists) There was much applause at the wildly successful campaign to raise money to bring the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra to most metropolitan areas.  From the efforts by fans of all stripes funding "The Orchestra" it was going to be possible to give away free tickets to an orchestra so everyone can have the joys of live music. It was to end the debate about what live music was going to sounds like, and what gave the most realistic sound by bringing reality to every man woman and child that wanted it in the United States. It was said on the fundraising page “Everyone who’s ever heard The Orchestra will tell you that the difference is surprising and dramatic,” they wrote. “They tell us that not only do they hear the difference; they feel it in their body, in their soul.” Famous musicians react to the Orchestra sound they’ve just heard. “That music made me feel go...

Crimson Electronics in our room, serving up some serious excitement and music! Note:  This is a long overdue article.  We demoed the crimson gear in late 2014, wrote up the outline of the article, and then life intervened in the way that life does.  I want to extend an apology to the guys at Austin HiFi for my tardiness in writing this up.  And honestly, after borrowing the cables and amps, I really do feel that I wanted to get the word out!  And for clarification, they generously offered the set to us for evaluation, and we based this review upon that evaluation. ================================= "We feel most audiophiles are focused on the wrong things ..." I was calling the friendly folks at Austin Hi Fi after a complimentary email to me about the blog, and we were talking about Crimson Electronics, the pre-eminence of canines in our lives, and Audio Philosophy.  And I'd have to say that not only do they have a friendly way about them, but th...

We were looking over the end of year reports from the RIAA and others, and one thing is clear - the traditional CD album - is in decline, and streaming services are on the rise.  We have been on the tip of that wave - being longtime subscribers to Pandora, Spotify, and others - and are happy with them.  The one thing that has stopped them for being anything other than a casual/background listen is the compressed nature always fell short of spinning a CD, or even playing a FLAC file for musical enjoyment.  The holy grail, in our book, would be a high resolution streaming service (preferably something on the order of 24/96) that could give us a reliable, high quality sound that wouldn't sound like a compromise for convenience's sake. But streaming services c2013 weren't there.  Even at the highest offered rate of 320kbps, there was a small amount of lost ambience and detail compared to a silver disc spun in our CD player (not to even broach the subject of an LP whic...