CD, High-Res Audio, DVD–

Arcam’s Player Does it All

S T E R E O • M U LT I C H A N N E L A U D I O • M U S I C

six
Great
Stereo
Systems
From
$827 (p. 28)

The CD
Turns 25
A Retrospective

2 Fabulous Speakers Under $800 • DALI’s New Mentor

Speakers • Audio Research’s CD7 • 7 Disc Players
Reviewed • 18 Pages of New Music Reviews
Contents
September 2007 22 Behind the Wheel

“
Hi-fi on wheels? Neil Gader reports
on three truly high-end systems from
Arcam has carved out a niche making
high-quality players that deliver
great sound and are compatible with
“ the well-known audio firms of Lexus,
Mercedes-Benz, and Audi.

28 Six Great-Sounding
multiple disc formats.
and Affordable
Systems
More music for less money! We put
together six high-end systems ranging in
price from $827 to $4968.

22
84
TAS goes digital!
43 Cover Story: You’ve come a long way, Baby!
the compact disc turns 25
Robert Harley brings you a comprehensive report on how the compact
disc started and how far it’s come in the last twenty-five years.
58 The Last CD Player?
Tom Martin thinks about what matters—and how much—in digital playback.

67 The Crème de la Crème in Digital Discs

Our staff picks the best-sounding CDs, SACDs, and DVD-As. Equipment
70 Seven CD, SACD, and Universal Players for any budget Reports
95 Van Alstine Transcendence 8
70 Oppo DV-981HD Dick Olsher on a new hybrid preamp
Chris Martens on this extraordinary (and affordable) new universal player. from old audio hand Frank Van Alstine.

74 Yamaha DVD-S1700 99 DALI Mentor 2 and Mentor 6
Neil Gader on a great deal in a uni-player. Robert Harley reports on two new
additions to DALI’s outstanding product
76 Cambridge Audio Azur 840C line—the stand-mounted Mentor 2 and
Robert Harley on what might be the best value in high-end audio. floor-standing Mentor 6.

80 NAD M55 106 The Cutting Edge

Chris Martens listens to NAD’s upscale new universal player. Audio Research Reference CD7
JV on the first CD player ARC has
84 Cover Story: Arcam DV139 and DV137 designated a “Reference” product.
Robert Harley reports on two uni-players that handle any format with aplomb.
. 114 HP’s Workshop
88 Marantz SA-7S1 Further Thoughts, Sneak Previews, and
Robert E. Greene explores a unique SACD player that lets you have it your way. Capsule Reviews from HP.
 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Contents
14
6 Letters
Music
11 From The Editor 139 RECORDING OF THE
ISSUE
12 Industry News S.S. Wesley: Organ Works.
14 Future TAS 122 Rock
Reviews of new CDs and LPs
17 Start Me Up from Mary Gauthier, Kim
Neil Gader on two affordable Richey, Jason Isbell, Nina
loudspeakers: the Silverline Nastasia, Tiny Vipers, Fionn
Audio Minuet and the Mission Regan, Bruce Springsteen, Paul
Elegante e80. McCartney, Tomahawk, White
Stripes, Shellac, QOTSA, Wilco,
20 Book review Dungen, and more. Plus, box
sets from Frankie Valli and
118 Manufacturer’s Genesis, and reissues from
Comment the Pixies, Byrds, and Grateful
Dead.
17
139 Classical
The scoop on Howard Hanson’s
Merry Mount, Emerson String
Quartet’s take on Brahms,
Silvestrov’s Symphony 6,
Gruber’s Frankenstein!!, a
Gershwin SACD, two Decca
opera reissues, Stravinsky’s The
Soldier’s Tale reissue, and Cisco’s
latest Tchaikovsky audiophile LP
repressing.
148 Jazz
Coverage of hot releases from
Stefano Battaglia, Nels Cline,
Mark Soskin, and Daniel
Bernard Romain. And newly
unearthed treasures from
Charles Mingus/Eric Dolphy
and Trio of Doom, plus reissues
from Mingus, Jaco Pastorius, and
Coleman Hawkins.
168
152 Back Page
10 Questions for Lars Worre of
DALI.
 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
 founder; chairman,
editorial advisory board
Harry Pearson
editor-in-chief Robert Harley
executive editor Jonathan Valin
managing and music Bob Gendron
editor
acquisitions manager Neil Gader
and associate editor
proofreader Mark Lehman
art director Torquil Dewar
senior writers
John W. Cooledge, Anthony H. Cordesman,
Wayne Garcia, Robert E. Greene, Chris Martens,
Dick Olsher, Andrew Quint, Sallie Reynolds,
Paul Seydor, Alan Taffel
reviewers and
contributing writers
Soren Baker, Greg Cahill, Dan Davis,
Andy Downing, Jim Hannon, Jacob Heilbrunn,
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David McGee, Bill Milkowski,
Derk Richardson, Don Saltzman,
Max Shepherd
hp’s equipment setup Danny Gonzalez
web producer Ari Koinuma
Absolute Multimedia, Inc.
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2007 Absolute Multimedia, Inc., September 2007. The Absolute Sound
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Letters
e-mail us: rharley@absolutemultimedia.com
or write us a letter: The Absolute Sound, PO Box 1768, Tijeras, New Mexico 87059
Do Hard Drives
Sound Better
than CD?
I just read “A Transparent Window on
the Source” [RH’s review of the Esoteric
P-03/D-03 in Issue 171] and found it
very interesting. I’d like to read an article
about the sonic differences when music
is recovered by reading a file from a disk
drive instead of from a CD. I suspect this
will soon be happening.
When music is read from a disk drive
(or memory stick), I would guess that the
quality of the mechanism reading the file
would make little or no difference, but I
may be wrong.
Glenn Luecke
Do Hard Drives
Sound Better
than CD?
(Part Two)
Robert Harley, you have one of the most
deeply knowledgeable ears regarding
digital, so your opinion counts for more
than a little. I’m not clear, however, what
is meant when you say that there is no
audible difference between CD and the
Apple lossless format with the MSB iLink
wireless iPod docking station [reviewed
in Issue 172]. Was that with a stand-
alone CD player? Or DAC? MSB claims in
the same issue that the iLink compares (in
conjunction with its own DAC) with any
digital playback system. Since The Absolute
Sound can compare it to anything, why not
show your readers the truth (or falsity) of
this claim, given that your review seems
to imply it may have some validity? How,
 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
for example, do the Meridian 808 and
other reference-quality units compare?
cannot be distinguished from the sound
of a CD player (or, since RH wrote the
Also, it would be good to know what
HP is going to be reviewing in future
review, cannot be distinguished from
the sound of the Esoteric player); 2) the
issues. If some indication could be given in
advance, it would anchor his contributions
reason the iLink works so well is that the
signal on the iPod was produced by the
more deeply and consistently. CD drive of a computer, making multiple
John Penturn passes of each section of the CD until
a flawless signal is obtained.
Do Hard Drives Is the iLink/iPod equal to the Esoteric,
or any player, because of the multiple
Sound Better reads from a CD drive?
John B. Arango
than CD? Robert Harley replies: These are all
(Part Three) good questions, and ones that I intend
to explore in more depth in Issue 177
Sometimes it’s the conjunction of reviews, with a major feature on high-end music
rather than an individual review, that most servers. I will also write a follow-up
attracts my interest. This happened over report on the MSB iLink.
the last two issues. To address Mr. Arango’s question
Two months ago, the messages, as I
understood them, were: 1) In the future,
directly, I did not have the Esoteric on-
hand when I reviewed the MSB iLink
our music will be sourced from a hard
disk; 2) the Esoteric player extracts more
(the units had to be returned, temporar-
ily); I compared the digital output of
information from a CD than any other
player (and became RH’s reference). This
an Arcam DV139 (reviewed this issue)
to the iLink’s digital output, with both
led me to wonder whether I should buy
a better player before I start transferring
feeding a digital input of an Arcam AV9
controller.
my CDs to hard disks. With hard-disk-based music servers
Last month, the messages were: 1) The looking like the future of music storage,
MSB iLink, processing the signal from these questions warrant investigation
a modified iPod, produces sound that
This month on AVguide.com
• CEDIA 2007: See videos of the
best new products
• More picks for Recommended
Budget Systems
• Golden Ear Awards: TAS picks the
best of the best
• Get a free subscription to The
Perfect Vision

and definitive answers. I hope that
my feature in Issue 177 resolves these
uncertainties.
LP and Master-
tape Controversy
Robert Harley states in his LP Primer
on page 39 of the June/July 2007 is-
sue that “some have even suggested that
the LP in many ways sounds better than
the mastertape from which it was cut.”
This is a good thing? The mastertape
is the last step upstream next to the mi-
crophone—thus, by definition, as close as
we can get to the “absolute sound.” If the
LP sounds better than that, then it must
be adding or subtracting some part of the
mastertape sound, and what we’re per-
ceiving is euphonic coloration, distortion,
or noise. I don’t call that “better,” no
matter how pleasant it sounds, because
it is not faithful to the tape. Sounds like
we’re returning full circle to the “hi-
fi” years of Magnavox consoles and
Collero changers. They sounded great,
but in no way represented what the mas-
tertape offered. (By the way, I love the
magazine!)
 Ken T. Kern
Robert Harley replies: The idea that
an LP can sound better than a master-
tape comes from Doug Sax, who has
perhaps the most experience listening to
mastertapes and the LPs cut from them
of any living person. (Sax founded The
Mastering Lab, and as co-founder of
Sheffield Lab, is considered the “father
of the modern direct-to-disc recording.”)
His theory is that because the cutting
head converts an electrical signal into
mechanical motion, the signal has been
“pre-conditioned” (Sax calls it “predi-
gested”) so that the loudspeaker (which
must also convert an electrical signal to
mechanical motion) has an easier job.
You can read Sax’s full comments in Issue
149.
Here’s another way to look at the
question. Does a DSP room-correc-
tion device, which massively alters the
signal’s frequency response, degrade the
signal or improve it? The changes made
by the DSP are certainly a deviation
from the source, but result in flatter
response—a response closer to what’s on
the source—when that signal is repro-
duced by loudspeakers in a room.
More LP vs.
Mastertape
Controversy
The “Ultimate Analog” issue of TAS
[172] is interesting for what is says and
what it does not say. It extols the virtues
of vinyl but does not provide a digital-
analog shootout. In my experience, vinyl
does give more of a “you are there” sense
than digital. It seems, however, that the
best digital systems, DVD-A and SACD,
should be knocking on the door.  Robert Harley replies: Analog tape will
It should be a valid assumption that
the sound reproduced from vinyl must
be flawed simply because of all the
mechanical steps and transducers in the
process. This makes sense to me. Then
why doesn’t the best digital blow away the
best vinyl?
Digital must have its own set of
“errors”—big errors—that one would
think are identifiable. Do we not know
everything that is in live sound or not
fully understand audio perception? Are
we still unable to accurately measure
audio recording systems? These things
have been beaten to death, and yet the
reality gap continues.
Upcoming in The Absolute Sound Issue 175
• 2007 Editors’ Choice Awards—
a definitive compendium of every
product we recommend
• Verity’s new Rienza loudspeaker
• Recording the National
Philharmonic of Russia in high-
resolution surround
Letters
With all due respect to TAS’ “Ultimate
Analog” issue, the ultimate playback
experience does not come from vinyl, but
from analog tape.
I used to work at Infinity when we
used reel-to-reel tape recorders with
mastertapes for reference playback.
We had “connections” and a supply
of second- and third-generation tapes
from the “big companies,” as well as
homegrown stuff. I am here to tell you
unequivocally that vinyl does not match
tape. A comparison between the two
reveals the obvious superiority of tape.
No ifs ands or buts about it.
For obvious reasons, it is not practical
to create tapes like these for general
distribution. This is a shame, because
they can provide an experience that is
the audio equivalent of driving a new
Bugatti.
 John Miller
soon be made available to consumers
through The Tape Project. Subscribing
to The Tape Project gets you a modified
Technics SL1500 half-track machine
along with second-generation copies
made in real time of selected master
tapes on a subscription basis.
Jonathan Valin will be reporting on
The Tape Project in a future issue, and
comparing the tape playback to vinyl
and digital.
By the way, the word “ultimate” in
the title of Issue 172 modified “issue”
rather than “analog.”
• Affordable tube amplification
from PrimaLuna
• PS Audio’s new Power Plant AC
conditioners
• Superb new one-touch digital
room/speaker correction from
Copland
The Absolute Sound September 2007 
FROM
THE Editor
What’s Next
After the
Compact Disc?
T
wenty-five years ago, a revolutionary new audio
format debuted that dramatically changed the
way we listen to music. The Compact Disc,
launched in the U.S. on October 1, 1982, eventually
made digital audio a household commodity and was
a crucial step in making music more transportable and
accessible.
This issue’s feature article commemorating the
25th anniversary of the CD’s launch chronicles the
format’s conception and development, and describes
the high end’s contribution to improving CD sound
quality. What the feature doesn’t address, however, is
the important issue of what’s next in digital audio. The
CD’s fundamental technology was devised in the late
1970s—a lifetime ago in today’s rapidly changing world.
Think back to the state of computer, data-storage,
digital-processing, and digital-audio technologies
nearly 30 years ago, and suddenly the CD begins to
look primitive.
The CD format has served us well, but it’s time to
look to the future for the next-generation music-carrier.
That carrier could be a packaged media such as HD
DVD or Blu-ray Disc, both of which have written into
their specifications the provision for an audio-only disc
that can store up to eight channels of 192kHz/24-bit
PCM digital audio (on Blu-ray; HD DVD’s maximum
TO P
TAS Top Values
VALUE
A new logo (“TAS Top Value”) debuts
this issue in the review of the Cambridge
Azur 840C CD player. The logo is designed to
highlight those special products that deliver a
tremendous price-performance ratio. We’ll use
this logo sparingly, but when you see it, you’ll
know that we consider the product an excep-
tional value.
spec is 96kHz/24-bit). It’s frustrating that the carrier
exists to deliver high-resolution multichannel digital
audio, along with the professional recording/mastering
infrastructure to create or remaster content, but that
you can’t buy music in either format. The simple reason
is that record companies don’t think that the public
will buy the discs. A high-resolution multichannel disc
flies in the face of the movement over the past decade
toward lower-quality and cheaper playback devices, free
access through pirated downloads, lower bit-rates, and
greater convenience through smaller size. In a world
where people expect their cellphone to be their hi-
fi system, it’s no wonder that record companies are
skeptical of a new high-res music disc. A new music
format would, however, be in the record companies’
best interests; the discs could contain powerful copy-
protection technology, offer vastly better sound quality,
and deliver a multichannel experience—none of which
is possible with low-bit-rate downloads.
The solution for those of us who care about sound
quality might just be to skip packaged media altogether
and go straight to high-resolution downloads. A
number of companies are offering high-resolution
downloads, some of them in multichannel (AIX
Records and Music Giants, for example). This idea has
certain inherent advantages, including instant access to
the world’s great legacy of recorded music, not just the
music in your collection. A download system would
also make it possible to select the quality level and price
you’re willing to pay for that quality; higher bit-rates
would command a premium. Although the technology
exists to download high-res music now, it’s not yet the
ideal solution because we need a larger installed base of
music servers to download to and access from. In an
upcoming issue, I’ll address this question with reviews
of several high-end servers, along with a report on the
state of high-res downloads.
In the meantime, we have vinyl, SACD, and DVD-
Audio. In a most welcome development, Warner
Records is releasing scores of titles from its vast
(and amazingly good) catalogue on high-quality LP
and DVD-A. The recording giant is also promoting,
through its new Web site becausesoundmatters.
com, the idea that sound quality is important to fully
appreciating music.
It’s a heartening sign when Warner Records spreads
the message of sound quality and offers its music in
high-quality formats rather than pursuing the lowest
common denominator of MP3. Let’s hope Warner’s
move is a harbinger of the future, because, after 25
years, the Compact Disc is showing its age.
Robert Harley
The Absolute Sound September 2007 11
Industry
NEWS
John M. Eargle, 1931–2007

I
t is with genuine sadness that we at The Absolute Sound note the
passing of John Eargle—a true gentleman and remarkable
scholar, widely considered the foremost authority on audio
engineering in this country.
Even though I met John Eargle only once—at this past year’s
CES, where he was explaining the inner workings of the top-of-
the-line Everest DD66000 loudspeaker from JBL (a company
for which he had long been a design consultant)—I, like so many
others with a lively interest in acoustics, recordings, and critical
listening, felt as if I knew Mr. Eargle well. His great—singularly
great—book on musical acoustics, Music, Sound, and Technology,
has been on my bookshelf for more than a decade and has been
referred to and quoted from so often (most recently in this very
issue) that it is now literally falling apart at its seams. That was the
thing about John Eargle’s writing. Whether it was his Handbook of
Recording Engineering, The Microphone Book, The Handbook of Sound
System Design, or any of the other myriad books and articles he
wrote, his style was so lucid, his insights so keen, his authority so
complete that he wasn’t just read; he was studied and admired.
It would take most of the pages of this magazine to list all
of the awards and honors that John Eargle won in the course thought—and in the lives and thought of the many others he
of his illustrious career: GRAMMYs, Oscars, the presidency of touched and continues to touch with the grace and intelligence
the Audio Engineering Society (AES). A polymath, he received of his words.
degrees in music from the Eastman School and the University A scholarship fund has been established in John Eargle’s
of Michigan, in engineering from the University of Texas and name under the auspices of the Audio Engineering Society’s
the Cooper Union, and in acoustics from Columbia University. Educational Foundation. The John M. Eargle Memorial Schol-
Recording engineer, audio engineer, educator, thinker, and writer arship will be given to a deserving student who combines the
par excellence, he combined a deep love and knowledge of music attributes of engineering capability and musical interests. Con-
with a deep love and knowledge of the electromechanical means tributions should be made by check to the AES Educational
by which it is preserved and reproduced. Foundation with instructions to credit the Eargle Fund. They
It saddens me that I will never get a second chance to meet should be mailed to: AES Educational Foundation; Robert
John Eargle. But, then, all I have to do is glance at my bookshelf Sherwood, Treasurer; 1 Wolf ’s Lane, Pelham, NY 10803. All
to know that he will remain a living presence in my life and contributions will be acknowledged. Jonathan Valin

Rocky Mountain Audio Fest 2007

The Rocky Mountain Audio Fest, an event The Absolute
Sound heartily encourages readers to attend, will be held
October 12–14, 2007, in the Marriott Tech Center Hotel in
Denver, Colorado. As TAS editors have noted in the past,
RMAF is a very special show that affords attendees a chance
to see and hear a tremendous amount of high-performance
audio equipment—spanning all price ranges—in a single
convenient location. One of the many things we have
appreciated about RMAF in the past is its friendly, collegial
atmosphere, which stands in sharp contrast to high-
pressure trade shows such as CEDIA or CES. Event passes
are reasonably priced, too: One-day passes are $10; two-
day passes, $20; three-day passes, $25; and students can
attend for half price.
As this is written, 159 exhibitors are slated to partici-
pate and more may join the roster before RMAF begins.
For more information, or to register in advance, visit www.
audiofest.net. To make reservations at the Marriott Tech
Center Hotel, contact John.F.Hogan@marriott.com.
Chris Martens

12 September 2007 The Absolute Sound

Future
Chris Martens
TAS

Snell C7 loudspeakers
Dr. Joseph D’Appolito, chief engineer for Snell, has been hard at work over the past several
years developing Snell’s evolving Series 7 loudspeakers. Now, Snell has announced the flagship
model in the series, the three-way, five-driver C7 floorstanders, priced at $6500/pair. The C7
features two side-firing 8" aluminum woofers and two 4.5" treated-paper mid/bass drivers
that flank a 1" silk-dome tweeter. The mid/bass drivers and tweeter are configured as—what
else?—a classic D’Appolito array. All drive units are made by SEAS.
Like every model in the Series 7 family, the C7s feature sleek, simple, and elegant styling,
created for Snell by the famous industrial designer Gerd Schmieta. We haven’t heard the
production models, but based on a brief listen to an engineering prototype, we expect the C7s
will provide great imaging and neutral tonal balance. snellacoustics.com

Boulder Model 860 stereo

amplifier and Model 865
integrated amplifier
Boulder amplifiers have long enjoyed reputations as top-tier
performers with prices to match, which realistically means
that Boulder products have been priced beyond the reach
of all but a lucky few—until now. Seeking to make Boulder
ownership accessible to a broader range of audiophiles, the
firm has announced two new models in its 800 Series family
of components. The Model 860 stereo amplifier, priced at
$8500, puts out 150 watts of what Boulder terms “wide- Revel Ultima Salon2 loudspeaker
bandwidth, high-current power in any loudspeaker load.”
To help control costs (and hence, asking price) Boulder gave For some TAS staff members the single most exciting event at the 2006 CEDIA
the 860 “less complex chassis work, lower power output, and (Custom Electronics Design & Installation Association) show was a sneak preview
a smaller footprint” than its premium-priced big brothers, of Revel’s upcoming Ultimate Series 2 flagship loudspeakers. At the event,
but the firm stresses that in all other respects the 860 is every designer Kevin Voecks discussed his new design and then gave a roughly 30-
inch a real Boulder. Along with the Model 860, Boulder is minute demonstration of the top-of-the-line Salon2s, where the speakers showed
also releasing the Model 865 integrated amplifier, priced tremendous promise of good things to come.
at $11,500. The 865 in essence combines the Model 810 Now, Revel has begun shipping the Salon2s, priced at $21,998/pair, with the
preamplifier and Model 860 power amplifier in a single other new Ultima models (the Studio2s at $15,998/pair, Voice2s at $7999 each, and
chassis, offering them at a significantly lower price than the GEM2s at $9998/pair) to follow soon. The Salon2 is a 4-way, six-driver floorstander
separate components would cost. boulderamp.com said to offer exceedingly low distortion, balanced in-room power response,
and terrific resolution. Even if the Salon2s are far beyond your price range, we
encourage you to hear them, if only to enjoy their benchmark performance.
revelspeakers.com

14 September 2007 The Absolute Sound

Start Me Up
A new wave of mini-monitors that don’t turn
tail and run from a crescendo
Silverline Audio Minuet and Mission Elegante e80 loudspeakers
Neil Gader
I
’ve never ceased to be amazed by what
the specifications of a component
don’t say. For instance take a look at
the specs for these two loudspeakers, the
Silverline Audio Minuet and the Mission
Elegante e80. They are roughly the same
size, give or take an inch or so. Both are
two-way designs with frequency response
and impedance numbers in the same
ballpark. Sonically, however, they are as
different as night and day, and provide a
rich illustration of the choices and trade-
offs the savviest designers pluck from
their bags of tricks.
Silverline Audio Minuet
The Silverline Audio Minuet is, as its
name implies, tiny in the extreme. A mere
nine inches tall, the two-way reflex design
utilizes a rear-firing port to shore up the
load placed on its hard-working 3.25"
mid/bass driver. Its vinyl-clad cabinetry is
so austere it could be approved for use in
a Jesuit monastery. A twin pair of binding
posts is provided for biwiring, but in light
of the Minuet’s flyweight status, heavy
cabling should be carefully dressed and
the speaker should be well secured to the
stand. At 88dB sensitivity, the Minuet was
easy to drive and performed appealingly
with the Belles Soloist 50Wpc separates
that I recently reviewed.
The Minuet is one gregarious and
voluble mini. From the upper bass up,
this speaker is all about whip-quick
reflexes, transient speed, and nicely
graduated dynamics. Thanks to its
smooth silk-dome tweeter its character is
spirited, with sweet soaring highs. Piano
reproduction, my faithful barometer, is
exceedingly satisfying. A good example
of the Minuet’s naturalistic presentation
can be found in Norah Jones’ “Election
Day” [Not Too Late, Blue Note], where
it has both brilliance on top and enough
flesh in its midrange to convey a lifelike
sense of scale and weight. As I expected
given the rigidity of the micro-enclosure,
piano transients were lightning fast and
the enclosure was all but invisible within a
well-defined soundstage. Likewise Jones’
quirky vocals, a cocktail of purr and
smoke, are imparted with good presence,
point-source-style imaging, and a wonder-
The Absolute Sound September 2007 17
Start Me Up
fully smooth transition at the crossover
point. Although I’d like to shave off a
hint of the spotlighting I hear on top,
harmonically the Minuet has an intrinsic
sweetness that just won’t quit.
Even an SACD torture track like the
Police’s “Murder By Numbers” [Syn-
chronicity, A&M] came off well. The big
kick drum was delineated with subtle
textures and utterly surprising dynamism.
And the Minuet actually does have some
genuine midbass resolution, no mean
feat. Although it attains impressively high
SPLs, when stressed it will sit on vocals a
bit, pushing them back a couple rows. I
won’t belabor its most obvious and pre-
dictable shortcoming, but like every mini
Though, like any
mini-monitor, it is
limited in the deep
bass, the Minuet is
otherwise musicality
personified
speaker, the Minuet can’t summon the
linearity and sheer gravitas that larger
multidriver speakers have in the low
frequencies. With a speaker that doesn’t
have the ability to move great volumes
of air, orchestral bass and hall ambience
are more generalized, and bass is more
reliant on port output. And some port
effects can be heard. As a consequence,
music’s scale and grandeur are somewhat
miniaturized. You can hear this when the
heavy guns of the brass section begin
blaring or a baritone vocalist along the
lines of a Bryn Terfel summons the
deeper resonances from his diaphragm.
However, that’s not to belittle this tiny
attention-grabber. True, if your tastes run
strictly to Mahler or Metallica it might be
a bit overmatched. Otherwise, the Minuet
is musicality personified.
Mission Elegante e80
The Mission Elegante e80 is only a
couple inches taller than the Silverline
Minuet, but its physical and sonic dif-
ferences place it a world apart. Whereas
the Minuet hews to a traditional square-
18 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
shouldered silhouette, the Elegante e80
is pure 21st century, sporting a high-
gloss anthracite finish over a multilayer
laminate. Its rounded edges and curvilin-
ear side panels are derived in part from
Mission’s own Pilastro flagship, and said
to result in lower diffraction artifacts and
optimal dispersion characteristics. Dual
inputs provide biwiring capability as well.
The additional cabinet volume is well
used—the 4.5" mid/bass transducer is
a considerable step up in cone area over
that of the diminutive Silverline. Unlike
the Minuet, Mission has opted for an
acoustic-suspension cabinet—hence, sen-
sitivity is reduced to 85dB, making the
Elegante e80 a slightly tougher load to
drive. In practice, it was perfectly happy
with fifty-watters like the Belles, although
in the lower frequencies it performed
discernibly better with higher-powered
amps.
Swapping out the scrappy Silverline
for the e80 was like being transported
into a different listening space. The
e80 conveyed a warmer, more cushiony
character in the drawing-room manner
of traditional British monitors. The mids
were slightly subdued and discernibly dark,
yet always thoroughly refined. The treble
range was smooth, though at times a bit
cooler and more exposed, due to a slight
roll-off in the upper mids or presence
range. Complex percussion interplay or
rat-a-tat piano transients seemed a bit
slower off the line—more reserved. In
comparison to its ported competitor, the
e80 reproduced hall ambience in a more
sophisticated fashion. Its low-end was
more detailed as it articulated Stewart
Copeland’s kick drum figures during
“Murder By Numbers,” but the trade-off
was that, without the port reinforcement,
your ear gets a reduced sensation of air
being pushed around the room. On the
other hand, lower midrange/upper bass
timbres from the soundboard of a piano
were riper, with richer resonances and
longer decays. And Bryn Terfel’s vocal on
“Shenandoah” [Sings Favourites, DG] was
more convincing and expressive. Bottom
line? On balance these speakers finish in
a near dead heat, with the Elegante e80
edging out the Minuet in the region below
middle C, while the Minuet captures the
flag in the octaves above.
Specs &
Pricing
Silverline Audio Minuet
Drivers: 1" tweeter, 3.25" mid/woofer
Frequency Response: 60Hz–28kHz
Impedance: 8 ohm
Sensitivity: 88dB
Dimensions: 9" x 5.5" x 7.25"
Weight: 15 lbs.
Price: $600/pr.
Silverline Audio
936 Detroit Ave., Unit C
Concord, CA 94518
(925) 825-3682
silverlineaudio.com
Mission Elegante e80
Drivers: 1" tweeter, 4.5" mid/woofer
Frequency Response: 80Hz–30kHz
Impedance: 8 ohms
Sensitivity: 85dB
Dimensions: 11.2" x 6.3" x 9.8"
Weight: 13 lbs.
Price: $899/pr.
Taiga LLC
310 Tosca Drive
Stoughton, MA 02072
(781) 341-1234
mission.co.uk
Associated Equipment
Sota Cosmos Series III turntable; SME V
pick-up arm; Shure V15VxMR cartridge;
MBL 1531, Simaudio Moon Supernova;
T+A P1230R;Plinius SB301; Synergistic
Tesla Precision Reference, Nordost
Baldur; Wireworld Silver Electra and
Kimber Palladian power cords; Richard
Gray line conditioners
Conclusion
Together, the Silverline Audio Minuet and
the Mission Elegante e80 represent a new
wave of mini-cannons that won’t turn tail
and run away from a crescendo. Certainly,
you wouldn’t purchase them with the
aim of filling a living room with vaulted
ceilings. And neither is going to slam
you against the wall like an 8th Avenue
mugger. However in a den or bedroom,
nestled closer to a backwall for bass re-
inforcement, either of these two minis
will thrive. Which one is for you? Only
one person can unequivocally answer that
question. Either way, you’ll be owning a
pair of the biggest little speakers I’ve ever
heard. TAS
Book review

McIntosh “…for the love of music…”

Ken Kessler (McIntosh Audio Laboratories). 315 pp. Price: $150.
To order: www.mcintoshlabs.com
Robert E. Greene

T
he great American hi-fi amplifiers, you can find them on
boom of the 1950s! The line, e.g., at http://www.drtube.
LP record, full-frequency com/audioamp.htm, or in Jean
range at last, sides long enough Hiraga’s classic book, and see es-
for whole pieces of music, and pecially http://www.roger-russell.
most of all, long after its theory com/c26pg.htm#c26 for views
had promised so much, stereo! of interior construction and other
No event in audio in more McIntosh memorabilia.) But for a
recent times has had anything like charming and historically infor-
the impact of the arrival of stereo. mative romp through what it was
By comparison, the arrival of CD, like in the early days of hi-fi and
say, was a mere ripple. Stereo was stereo, and some of the later days,
new; stereo was different; stereo too, this book is the ticket.
worked and worked demonstra- The book is, as people used
bly—those ping-pong games to say then, lavishly illustrated,
and passing trains fascinated us throughout its 300+ pages, with
totally. And stereo was, in the wonderful photos of the people,
eyes of us Americans, American the products, the advertisements,
at a time when American tech- the production facilities, anything
nology seemed triumphant and you could want and some things
altogether virtuous. RCA and you might not even know were
Columbia led the world of re- there. (Ever seen a McIntosh label
cordings—after all, Columbia had invented the LP, hadn’t it? And LP? I hadn’t.) Author Ken Kessler has done a fine job of inter-
RCA, following the theories of Bell Telephone Labs, that temple viewing everyone who is still around to be interviewed and getting
of American technological might, had all but invented stereo to intriguing comments from the major McIntosh figures (there
our eyes (with more than a little input from England, of course, in are also comments from TAS’ own Paul Seydor on McIntosh
reality). At this shining moment, in the world of audio electronics yesterday and today). I especially appreciated Dave O’Brien’s rec-
for the home, McIntosh reigned supreme, alone at the top, at least ollections of the famous McIntosh clinics program, of which he
until Marantz came along to make it two at the top a bit later. was the mainstay, back in the days when measurements ruled the
Of course, few of us teenagers could afford McIntosh stereo roost and people wanted measurement proof that they had what
electronics. But we could dream, while we built out Heathkits they paid for. There is wealth of information in this book, not
and homebrew items bread-boarded up from circuit diagrams. only on McIntosh itself but also by implication on life in America
And dream we did. Those early days of high fidelity were a in decades past.
heady time, and their like will not return. But it is a happy thing, The lively text is full of enthusiasm. There is much solid history,
indeed, that after all the decades McIntosh is still manufactur- with careful documentation, straight from the participants, from
ing audio equipment of superb quality, still in New York State, those present at the creation, but it is history full of excitement.
still representing some of the finest in audio technology. RCA The book is not inexpensive, but it is the sort of thing that does
and Columbia are gone, as are most of the American electronics not come along very often. Audio is lamentably short on books
marques in all but name. But McIntosh lives on. about its own history, and this, like Kessler’s book on Quad of
You can recapture the excitement of that first great age of England, is a really fine addition to what one might hope will
modern audio. All you have to do is read this book. It is a bit become a larger literature. (How I would like such a book on the
short on the technical nuts and bolts—hardly a circuit diagram glory days of Acoustic Research!) I enjoyed every minute of it.
in sight and not all that much on how those remarkable products I haven’t had so much fun reading since our DVD of the back
actually operated. (If you want circuit diagrams for classic tube issues of MAD magazine arrived. TAS
20 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
 Behind
Wheel
THE
Premium
Rides and
Premium
Sound
Lexus LS 460L, Mercedes-Benz S550, Audi A8L
Neil Gader
V
isited an automotive showroom lately? Then you’re
certainly aware that car audio has come a long way since
the days of the humble single-speaker AM/FM radio.
Compared to yesteryear, today’s selection of car audio systems
is truly dazzling. And, now, there’s a whole new level of music
on wheels.
In recent years elite automakers have been collaborating with
high-end audio manufacturers to raise the bar on sound quality
to unprecedented heights—even touting “audiophile-grade”
listening experiences. Impossible? Since I’ve always been a
sucker for a great ride (be it audio or auto), what better way to
validate these claims than to road test for myself three samples
of this new high-end breed of car—the Lexus LS 460L, the
Mercedes-Benz S550, and the Audi A8L.
Over the course of my listening/driving tests, I was
reminded of the things the designers of these systems had told
me about the acoustic hurdles that a car interior presents. A
Mark Levinson representative humorously characterized it as a
“seriously irregular listening room.” And Geoff Martin, Sound
22 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Designer of the Bang & Olufsen Advanced Sound System in
the Audi A8, said: “It’s a bit of a win/lose situation. In a car,
all of the loudspeakers are in the wrong places; the listeners are
in the wrong places; and the listening ‘room’ is terrible—it’s a
very small space, and it has extremely high background noise.
On the ‘win’ side, we know exactly where the speakers are; we
know where the listeners are; and we know everything we can
about the listening space.”
This last part of Martin’s statement is key: Knowing everything
about a listening space—good and bad—liberates designers to
focus their efforts on a specific goal. Thus, each system has
benefited from a rigorous acoustical analysis of the auto’s
interior, from countless angles and every listening position—
and that analysis has resulted in custom DSP solutions. In the
pursuit of a holistic systems-approach to sound reproduction
for every passenger, each channel’s character has been individu-
ally tuned with unique frequency responses, crossover filtering,
and time-alignment curves unheard of in a conventional home-
audio system.
Behind the Wheel
Lexus LS 460/460L and the Mark Levinson
Reference Surround System
lexus.com/models/LS
The exclusive partnership between Lexus and Mark Levinson, a
premium designer of high-end home electronics (now owned by
Harman International), is entering its seventh year. The culmi-
nation of this collaboration recently debuted in Lexus’ all-new
LS flagship. Known as Mark Levinson Reference Surround, it’s
a discrete 5.1-channel system that comprises nineteen speakers
powered by 450 watts of digital amplification.
However, that’s the final chapter of a story that commenced
in 2001 with preliminary discussions for a new audio system
for the next-gen LS. In this instance the design team enjoyed a
crucial advantage: It had the opportunity to address acoustic and
technical issues during the pre-planning and design stages of the
new LS—an arrangement virtually unheard of in the industry.
With Lexus handling the nuts-and-bolts engineering challenges,
the audio wizards at Mark Levinson created Mark Levinson
Surround (MLS), a digital signal processing system (DSP) based
on extensive acoustic analysis of, and designed exclusively for,
the Lexus cabin and manufactured at Levinson’s own dedicated
“clean room” production line in Northridge, California.
MLS includes proprietary DSP algorithms that optimize 5.1-
channel playback for “multiseat” listening in a 7.1-channel system.
The system is capable of delivering the highest-resolution audio
content from DVD-Audio discs, as well as conventional compact
discs and MP3 files. The front end of the system includes a
DVD/CD changer with navigation and 30GB hard-drive audio
24 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
storage. Every channel uses identical 1" titanium tweeters and 4"
midrange units. The front three channels are positioned in the
same horizontal plane along the top of the dash—a good listening
height for passengers. A front pair of 6" x 9" woofers are door-
mounted. Surround channels four and five utilize the identical
midrange/tweeter tandem, mounted forward of the rear seating
area. This array is duplicated for back channels six and seven
in the rear C-pillar. Dual door-mounted 6.5" woofers support
the back channels, and a rear-deck-mounted 10" subwoofer is
reserved for the deepest bass.
Over the top? Not if it works. And, boy, does it ever.
The MRS is an exceptionally well-integrated system that
captures many of the qualities of finer high-end home setups. It
delivers a neutral tonal balance that energizes Norah Jones’ vocals
and conveys the timbral nuances of her piano. Its character is
not overly analytical, but surprisingly articulate. Percussion tran-
sients and drum fills have energetic snap; brass and winds have
substance and bloom, not just spit and sizzle. And thanks to
three channels of identical two-way speaker systems across the
dash, the orchestral soundstage is superb. My hat’s off to MLS
for producing a sense of envelopment that rarely tugs the ear
towards a door panel, whether you’re seated in the back or the
front. Distortion, even at Springsteen levels, remains satisfyingly
low, so there is little fatigue-factor after prolonged listening. Due
to the supernaturally quiet cabin, dynamics are wide-ranging,
although the lowest-level resolution remains problematical
for even the quietest rides. Always an issue in the restricted
confines of a car, deep bass reproduction lacks the pitch articu-
lation required by the subterranean murmurings of a symphony
orchestra, but should play well with the hip-hop and rock crowd.
Still, by any standard, Lexus and Mark Levinson are offering an
enormous step up from the traditional car-audio experience. At
$2530, it’s a relative steal.
Mercedes-Benz S550
mbusa.com
For its lavish S-Class starships, Mercedes-Benz opted for the
Harman Kardon/Logic7 multichannel system. Not only is it
standard equipment; it’s also the real bargain of the bunch. It
bundles a Harman/Becker hard-drive-based navigation system
with a six-disc DVD changer capable of DVD-Audio high-
resolution multichannel playback, as well as playback of other
common disc formats. Strategically placed throughout the cabin
are fourteen drive units and 600W of power amplification. Digital
signal processing is provided courtesy of Logic7—a keystone
surround architecture developed by Lexicon (like Levinson,
also a Harman subsidiary). Recognized for its musicality Logic7
combines intelligence and processing power, enabling it to derive
seven channels from five-channel and two-channel sources.
The S550 uses fourteen metal-matrix drivers in an expanded
system that was originally derived from the Mercedes E-Class
family. Only the 4" center channel is positioned on the dash. The
front left/right channels are a three-way system and are door-
mounted. They include a 1.5" tweeter, 4" mid, and 8" dual-voice-
coil subwoofer. The rear channels are also door-mounted and
include a 1.5" tweeter and 6" woofer. The rear deck houses dual
Behind the Wheel
4" midrange units acting as back channels and an ovoid dual-
voice-coil 8" by 13" center-mount subwoofer.
The S550’s basic sonic character was reminiscent of the
Lexus in establishing robust midrange energy that conveyed the
richness of both male and female vocals. However, the liveli-
ness factor seemed slightly muted, as if some of the harmonic
“air” that fills a performance had escaped. There was a general
sense of the music being weighted down rather than driving
forward. The key shortcoming of the Harman system is that only
the center channel is dashboard mounted—the four remaining
channels reside in each door panel. As a result, there is less of a
classic soundstage, and less of an opportunity to feel immersed
in the “sweetspot.” And, unfortunately, speaker localization—a
problem to be avoided—is more of a factor here, especially in
the front seats. (This was a problem largely avoided with the
Lexus and Audi systems.) Interestingly, I thought the Harman
system performed far better from a rear-seat perspective. In
back, it came into its own, with a stronger sense of envelopment
and channel integration. In any other context this would have
been an excellent system (and standard equipment, at that), but
the shadow of the Lexus/Levinson system looms large.
Audi A8L
audiusa.com
Bang and Olufsen, the stylish Danish audio group, teamed with
Audi and created the Advanced Sound System specifically for
the sumptuous A8/A8L flagship. In this instance, B&O bet its
technology on the Compact Disc rather than the DVD, thus
making it the lone flag bearer for two-channel purists in this
survey. The Danish team has worked acoustic wonders within
the two-channel paradigm by flooding the cabin with fourteen
active speakers, including a pair of B&O’s distinctive, wide-
dispersion Acoustic Lens tweeters, derived from the BeoLab
5 flagship (and motorized to vanish when inactive), and 1000
watts of switching amplification courtesy of B&O’s ICEpower
subsidiary. In the left/right position on the dash are a pair of
Acoustic Lens tweeters and a 3" center channel; mounted in the
26 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Bang and Olufsen’s
Acoustic Lens tweeter
front doors are 3.5" midrange/5.25" midbass drivers; in the rear
doors are a 1" tweeter and 5.5" midbass; and in the rear deck are
two 3.5" full-range drivers and one 8" subwoofer.
The result is a system that concentrates on the frontal sound-
stage with less emphasis on surround-channel fireworks. It’s a
nuanced, almost delicate sound that is wholly consonant with the
classical music experience in that it creates an immersive sound-
field atop the dash, plus the kind of ambience and envelopment
you’d encounter in a small concert hall or jazz club. And in so
doing, the B&O/Audi configuration effectively minimizes the
lifeless acoustic-claustrophobia of an automobile cabin. Even
when you shift to the back seat, the B&O system manages to
float a soundstage ahead of the front seatbacks and, like a live
performance, create the impression that you’ve just moved back
a few rows in a virtual auditorium. Tonally, the B&O system
has a lighter balance that dispenses plenty of silk but not quite
enough slam. And as detailed as the Acoustic Lens technology
sounds, at times I felt there was too much localization of these
tweeters. Like the M-B and the Lexus, low bass was lacking in
timbral realism. The net effect is that instruments like double-
bass, electric bass, and kick drum exhibit more raw punch than
pitch-perfect tonality. At $6300, the B&O is an extravagant
option—so an audition is a must. Thanks to the designers at
B&O, it’s a fitting tribute to the venerable and well-established
Compact Disc format. Overall, it’s a beautifully executed system
that delivers on its promises.
The Bottom Line
As impressive as these systems are, can they match a great high-
end audio system? Not really, at least not yet. As a general ob-
servation these systems, while viscerally exciting, never quite
overcome their sense of containment—of cocoon-like isolation.
But there are transcendent glimpses of the kind of high-end nat-
uralism found in the dedicated listening room. In that regard, the
Lexus/Levinson rig more often comes the closest. And make no
mistake—any of these systems is like nothing you’ve ever heard
before in a car. TAS
 6 Great-Sounding and
Affordable Systems
Neil Gader, Robert Harley, Chris Martens

P
art of the joy of putting together a fine affordable
music system is the element of surprise.
When you find just the right set of synergistic
components, you wind up with a system
that captures more core musical values
than you would expect, for less money
than you might have thought possible.
With “more music for less money”
as our guiding theme, the TAS editorial team has assembled a group of five affordable
stereo systems, plus one multichannel system, each capable of terrific levels of musical
satisfaction for the dollar. Heeding feedback from readers, we’ve chosen lower-priced
systems than we’ve recommended in the past, with prices ranging from a mere $827 to
$4968.
All six systems are, we think, very good ones, but with careful listening and
experimentation readers may well be able to create packages they would prefer to ours
(which is, of course, part of
what makes this hobby so
much fun).
If nothing else, we hope our
suggestions will encourage
those who don’t yet own music
systems to get into the game.
As many TAS readers can
attest, there is nothing quite
like having beautiful music
in your home to provide
essential nourishment for
spirit and soul.

28 September 2007 The Absolute Sound

6 Affordable Systems
System 1:
The
O ne of the great myths in high-
end audio is that it’s impos-
sible to assemble a true high-
end system for under a grand. While
it’s awfully tough to put together a full-
Ground range, auditorium-filling rig for the odd
kilo-buck, if you have a handle on your
Floor
listening biases and some levelheaded ex-
pectations, budgetary restrictions won’t
prevent you from getting a big bite of
$827 what the high end can offer—as this
under-$1k system demonstrates.
The key to System 1 is the synergy
between the amplifier and the loudspeak-
er. Not surprisingly, they’re from two
familiar manufacturers whose benchmark
quality adds up to a lot more than the six
letters in the company names—NAD
and PSB.
In this instance, it’s the NAD
C325BEE remote-controlled in-
tegrated amplifier, with its robust
50Wpc power rating and propri-
etary PowerDrive technology, and
Paul Barton’s latest giant killer, the
newly redesigned PSB Alpha B1,
with its 90dB sensitivity.
Like virtually all NAD elec-
tronics, the C325BEE has notable
midrange neutrality and resolution
on tap, a general freedom from
gritty treble artifacts, and, thanks
to PowerDrive, some rocking
dynamic headroom that goes a
long way toward allowing the
Alpha to realize its full potential.
Although barely a foot high,
the PSB B1 has unshakable point-
source coherence and is nothing
if not dynamically outgoing,
with a combination of slam and
command rare in a speaker of
these dimensions and this cost.
When it comes to a source,
the brandname “Oppo” must be
short for Opportunity because for
the ultimate in digital playback
flexibility you can’t miss with
Oppo’s incredible DV-970HD.
For less than the cost of a Kobe
steak dinner, you’ll own not
merely a Red Book CD player
but a full-on, format-embracing,
universal machine capable of
decoding DVD-Audio and
SACD in either stereo or multi-
30 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
channel. And it’s incredibly well-balanced
sonically across all platforms—a rarity
for universal players. Some have noted
that the Oppo’s bass tends to be a little
lean, but this jibes well with the Alpha B1,
whose ripe upper-bass could use a bit of
pruning.
Overall, this is a system that offers
superb detail, excellent dynamics, and
amazing musicality, hour after pleasurable
hour. However, there are a couple options
to consider without crashing through the
$1k ceiling.
Committed to the purist route in
digital playback? Then strong consider-
ation should be extended to the NAD
C525BEE—a remote-controlled, single-
play, compact-disc machine with 20-bit
DACs courtesy of Burr Brown, and low-
noise Burr Brown op-amps, as well.
As for speakers, if a slightly lighter
and sweeter tonal balance is more your
thing, the Epos ELS3 ($329) confidently
fills the bill. Known for its midrange and
treble clarity, it sports just enough low-
frequency action to keep bass addicts
from mutinying.
However, it’s the Usher S520 ($400)
that will keep audiophiles and interior
designers equally happy. Boasting
gorgeous cabinetry and well-rounded per-
formance, it’s a great option, with solid
and honest bass response, wrapped in an
eye-candy enclosure. Neil Gader
• NAD C325BEE integrated amplifier
($399, Issue 169)
• Oppo DV-970HD universal player
($149, Issue 168)
• PSB Alpha B1 bookshelf loudspeakers
($279, Issue 170)
• Optional upgrades:
NAD C525BEE CD player
($299, Issue 169)
Epos ELS3 ($329, Issue 145) or Usher
S520 loudspeakers ($400, AVguide
Monthly, Issue 10)
6 Affordable Systems
System 2:
The
P utting together a musically satis-
fying system for about $1500 is
considerably easier than it was just
a few years ago. The price/performance
ratio of entry-level high-end components
Giant Killer keeps improving, as exemplified by this
outstanding system.
$1513
We start with two products from
England’s Cambridge Audio—the Azur
540A v2 integrated amplifier ($459) and
the matching (and identically priced)
Azur 540C v2 CD player. These were
easy choices: Both Cambridge units are
beautifully built and full-featured, and,
most importantly, deliver surprisingly
sophisticated sound. The 60Wpc 540A
is obviously built for sonic performance,
with a large power transformer, metal-film
resistors throughout, gold-plated jacks,
quality binding posts, and a motorized
Alps volume control. The 540A also has
a suite of clever features that protects
the amplifier and speakers from damage,
including a circuit that gently nudges
down the volume control if the amplifier
is overdriven into clipping.
The 540C CD player is built around
a custom disc-transport mechanism that
wouldn’t look out of place in a $2000
machine. The hefty metal transport
clamps the disc tightly from the top, and
the entire mechanism is damped to reduce
vibration. A key component of any CD
player is the digital-to-analog converter
chip, and here Cambridge has used a
pair of upper-end Wolfson 96kHz/24-
bit units. These are the identical DACs
used in some $3000 players. In a nice
touch that shows just how much design
effort went into making the 540A sound
good, the critical clock that controls DAC
timing (the point where jitter matters)
32 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
is a custom unit, encased in a separate
module to avoid contamination by nearby
circuits.
You won’t find anything near this level
of engineering in mass-market audio. To
top it off, both units are controlled by a
single beautifully made and thought-out
remote control that’s also intuitive to use.
The intelligent design and audiophile-
grade parts in the two Cambridge
products are immediately apparent in
their sound; this pair has a smoothness,
sophistication, and naturalness of timbre
that’s nothing short of amazing. In fact,
the 540A reminded me of the musically
seductive powers of a tubed amplifier.
The loudspeaker selection was also
a fairly easy choice: Focal’s new 706V,
priced at $595 per pair. The Focals have
a big, robust, and dynamic sound that is
fully the equal of many larger (and more
expensive) floorstanding speakers. With
the ability to play loudly and go low in the
bass, the 706V delivers a sound that one
doesn’t associate with a $595 bookshelf
system. Moreover, the 706V’s treble is
clean and clear, and its soundstaging
exceptional. This speaker tends to project
images forward of the loudspeakers,
giving it a brash, upfront quality that suits
some music (and listening tastes) more
than others.
Most $1500 systems tend to fall short
dynamically and in bass extension. Entry-
level integrated amps tend to be light
on power, and the small speakers they
are typically asked to drive are low in
sensitivity, requiring a hefty amp. Not
this system. The Cambridge 540A has
oodles of power in reserve, and plays
much louder than its 60Wpc rating would
suggest. And when matched to the 90dB-
sensitive Focals, you have a recipe for a
budget-priced system that sounds like it
cost a whole lot more money.
Robert Harley
• Cambridge Audio Azur 540A v2
integrated amplifier ($459, Issue 162)
• Cambridge Audio Azur 540C v2 CD
player ($459, Issue 162)
• Focal 706V bookshelf loudspeakers
($595 pr. Issue 173)
6 Affordable Systems
System 3:
Power,
E xpectations rise commensu-
rately with price—and justifi-
ably so. Compromises willingly
made because of a stricter budget aren’t
as necessary as the cost eclipses $2k—
Resolution, thanks to companies like Rotel and NHT.
Both firms were built on solid audiophile
Refinement
footings, but eschewed the conventional
wisdom that in order to look good and
sound great they necessarily had to offer
$2198 expensive gear. As a result, while System
3 does climb above two grand, it not only
does so with more power, resolution, and
extension than the previous two systems;
it also adds a layer of refinement.
System 3 is anchored by the 60Wpc
Rotel RA-1062 integrated amplifier,
which offers the flexibility of pre-outs for
bi-amping and includes a moving-magnet
phonostage for analog lovers. The amp is
joined by the Rotel RCD-1072 CD player,
an elegant single-play unit equipped with
a sweet Burr Brown 1732 DAC and
HDCD decoding. Both amp and CD
player are fully remote-controlled, and
like all Rotels they boast that company’s
trademark oversized toroidal transformer
and minimalist signal-path topology. Most
importantly, they have a sonic character
that is natural, neutral, and focused, with
just a hint of warmth.
All this bandwidth would go for
naught without the NHT Classic Three
34 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
loudspeaker. Yes, it’s a bookshelf, but it’s
not your standard screamin’ two-banger.
The Classic Three is a robust three-way.
With wide-open dynamics, a lion’s heart
of a midrange (tailor-made for your
favorite vocals), and seriously impressive
low-frequency response, it may be the
biggest little speaker around.
The big upgrade option to consider
here is to open the wallet a bit wider and
opt for a floorstanding speaker. However,
the concern is gaining extension and
output without losing the precision and
coherence of the Classic Three. Clearly
the DALI IKON 6 is up to the task. It
packs power and orchestral scale with
the balance, dynamics, and clarity that a
three-way floorstander offers. And the
sweetness of its dome/ribbon hybrid
tweeter (also found on the ultra-expensive
DALI models) is truly something to hear
and appreciate. With a sensitivity of
91dB, this redoubtable Dane is a Sunday
drive for the Rotel.
And finally, since you should seriously
consider giving the Rotel’s phonostage a
workout at some point, try giving Rega’s
P1 turntable a spin. The British ’table spe-
cialist packages the belt-driven Rega P1
with the RB100 tonearm and a factory-
mounted Ortofon 5E—a moving-magnet
whose output is compatible with the
Rotel phonostage. The English tandem
demonstrates a dancer’s sense of pace
and energy. The only things missing are
the fish ’n’ chips. NG
• Rotel RCD-1072 CD player
($699, Issue 147)
• Rotel RA-1062 integrated amplifier
($699, Issue 149)
• NHT Classic Three bookshelf
loudspeakers ($800, Issue 169)
• Optional upgrades:
DALI IKON 6 loudspeakers
($1595, Issue 164)
• LP playback option:
Rega P1 belt drive turntable with
RB100 tonearm and Ortofon OM5e
cartridge ($350, Issue 171)
6 Affordable Systems
System 4:
Engaging
W ith considerably more money
to spend on System 4, we can
base this hi-fi on the great
Naim Nait 5i integrated amplifier. I don’t
know how Naim does it, but for more
Musicality than 25 years its Nait integrated amps
have delivered a level of musicality and
$3323
emotional involvement that even many
high-priced separates don’t approach.
The problem has been their low power—
the Nait 2, for example, outputs just
18Wpc. But in this latest incarnation,
the 5i brings the Nait magic to 50Wpc,
enough to drive most loudspeakers. The
Nait is so good that I spent more than a
month driving a pair of $11,700 Wilson
Sophia speakers with it, even though I
had some four-figure preamps and power
amps on hand.
We’ll match the Nait 5i with another
British product, the $995 Rega Apollo.
In his review in Issue 165, Chris Martens
called the Apollo “easily the best sub-
$1000 CD player I’ve heard.” The Apollo
resolves layers and layers of musical
detail in a way that’s reminiscent of more
expensive players. Chris also enjoyed
the Apollo’s extension at the frequency
extremes: The treble was open and airy,
the bass tight and powerful. From a
technical standpoint, the Apollo features
some interesting engineering, including a
custom-made disc-transport mechanism
and servo-control electronics. The most
intriguing technical feature is a decoding
36 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
chipset with 20MB of memory and a
32-bit DSP engine, reportedly allowing
for more intensive error-correction
computation.
A perfect match for these electronics
is the Revel Concerta F12 loudspeaker.
This floorstanding three-way design from
Kevin Voecks features a smooth tonal
balance, an open midrange free from
colorations, and a spacious soundstage.
The Concerta F12 is resolving enough
to reveal the glory of the Nait 5i, and
the speaker’s high 90.5dB sensitivity will
make the most of the Nait’s 50 watts.
If you want more power, a good choice
is the Cambridge Audio Azur 840A
(120Wpc, $1499). It doesn’t quite have
the Nait’s seductive magic, but will deliver
deeper bass extension and fill a larger
room with sound.
A compelling alternative to the
Revel Concerta F12 loudspeaker is the
Vandersteen Model 2CE Signature
($1549/pr.). The Model 2 is the best-
selling audiophile loudspeaker of all
time—and for good reason. It offers a
wonderfully involving musical experience
and has a sound that instantly makes
you forget you’re listening to a pair of
speakers. The Vandersteen Model 2CE
Signature is also one of the great bargains
in high-end audio.
A nice addition to this system is a great-
sounding analog front end, and here we
choose the Pro-Ject RM-5 turntable with
a Sumiko Bluepoint No.2 cartridge. When
combined with the Gram Amp 2 SE pho-
nostage, you can discover (or re-discover)
the joys of vinyl for less than $1350. RH
• Naim Nait 5i integrated amplifier
($1425, AVguide Monthly, Issue 7)
• Rega Apollo CD player ($995, Issue
165)
• Revel Concerta F12 loudspeaker
($1198, Issue 157)
• LP playback option:
Pro-Ject RM-5 with Sumiko Bluepoint
No. 2 ($948) and Gram Amp 2 SE
phonostage ($399), Issue 172
• Optional alternatives:
Cambridge Audio Azur 840A amplifier
($1499, Issue 167)
Vandersteen 2CE Signature
loudspeakers ($1549/pr., Issue 139)
6 Affordable Systems
System 5:
Exotic Twist
A s we keep noting, sonic synergies
are the key to system-building,
and one of the sweetest-
sounding combinations we’ve found over
the past year is Rotel’s RC-1082 solid-
––Tube Amps state preamplifier ($1199) and Vincent
Audio’s SA-331 hybrid tube/solid-state
and Planar
power amplifier ($999).
The Rotel RC-1082 is a versatile, full-
function preamp that—analog enthusi-
Speakers asts take note—incorporates a quite re-
spectable mm/mc phonostage. It serves
$4968 up the expected elements of Rotel’s
“house sound’—quiet backgrounds, tonal
neutrality, good levels of transparency
and resolution—and something more:
a soulful heartiness with vibrant tone
colors that makes this preamp something
very special.
The Vincent, in turn, is that most rare
of audio beasts: an affordable power
amp that combines the delicacy, speed,
and harmonic richness of tubes with the
power (150Wpc), control, and tautness of
fine solid-state designs. Add
the Rotel to the Vincent
and you get a “best-of-two-
worlds” sound that makes
musical magic happen.
For the primary source,
we chose Rega’s Apollo
CD player ($995) on the
grounds that it is, hands
down, the best sub-$1k
CD player we’ve heard.
Transparency, focus,
detail, and wide frequency
response are all present
in good measure. It is in-
dicative of the Apollo’s
fundamental excellence
that Rega bases its $2500
flagship Saturn player on
the Apollo platform.
Finally, we complete
the system with an
old TAS favorite: the
classic Magnepan MG
1.6—a full-range, planar-
magnetic dipole speaker
that is one of the greatest
bargains in high-end
audio. From the midbass
up to the lower treble, the
MG 1.6 offers beautiful
tonal balance, terrific
38 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
openness, and uncannily coherent sound.
Bass extends down to about 40Hz (even
lower with some samples in some rooms),
while highs are clean and clear. There is
a slight degree of very-high-frequency
roll-off, but it in no way undercuts the
speaker’s core strengths. The MG 1.6s
need a bit of room to breathe and should
be positioned carefully to achieve optimal
bass and soundstaging. Once placed in
an ideal “sweet spot” in your room, the
Maggies will reward you with remarkably
deep, wide, and tall soundstages. Like all
of the larger Magnepans, the MG 1.6s
require a fair amount of power and tend
to sound best when turned up a bit. But
not to worry: The Rotel/Vincent pair
provides more than sufficient oomph to
make the Maggies sing.
To take the MG 1.6s to the next level,
consider using a top-shelf subwoofer
such as the REL Britannia 3 ($1995) to
help fill in the bottom octave. But note:
You can mess up the Maggies’ sound with
inferior subs; it’s best either to use a really
good one, such as the REL, or none at
all.
To add LP playback capabilities, which
we highly recommend, try adding the
excellent Pro-Ject RM-5 turntable with
Sumiko’s Bluepoint No. 2 moving-coil
cartridge ($948). Chris Martens
• Rotel RC-1082 preamplifier ($1199,
Issue 172)
• Vincent Audio SA-331 power amplifier
($999, Issue 173)
• Rega Apollo CD player ($995, Issue
165)
• Magnepan MG 1.6 loudspeaker
($1775/pair, Issues 113 and 114)
• LP playback option:
Pro-Ject RM-5 with Sumiko Bluepoint
No. 2 ($948, Issue 172)
• Subwoofer option:
REL Britannia 3 ($1995, Issue 163)
• Loudspeaker option:
Totem Hawk loudspeaker ($2450/pair,
Issue 139)
 6 Affordable Systems
System 6:
High-End
W e suspect a growing number
of TAS readers may want to
use systems suitable for both
movie and stereo playback—systems
that (of course!) are truly music-worthy,
Multichannel yet won’t cost you an arm and a leg
on surround-sound gear. This system
for Music and
perfectly fills the bill.
As the powerplant, we’ve chosen
Onkyo’s new 90Wpc $599 TX-SR605
Movies 7.1-channel A/V receiver (review
pending in The Perfect Vision). Directly
$2477 descended from Onkyo’s award-winning
$799 TX-SR674 receiver (reviewed in The
Perfect Vision, Issue 74), the TX-SR605
does more than its predecessor for less.
Modern-day Onkyo AVRs have a clean-
but-never-sterile sound that makes them
very satisfying for listening to CDs or high-
resolution multichannel music sources.
What’s more, the TX-SR605 supports
HDMI version 1.3 interfaces, provides
onboard Faroudja video-processing,
includes the excellent Audyssey 2EQ
room/speaker equalization system,
and—get this—provides onboard Dolby
TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio
decoders. In short, this receiver will be
ready when HD-DVD/Blu-ray discs start
to appear with better-than-CD-quality
soundtracks.
The Oppo DV-981HD ($229) universal
player is one of the biggest bargains in
digital audio/video today. It offers balanced
performance for CD, SACD, and DVD-
40 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Audio playback, while its unexpectedly
transparent sound reminds us of the
performance of players two-to-four times
its price. Apart from sounding good, the
DV-981HD is a killer video player, too.
Finally, we complete the system with
Definitive Technology’s ProCinema 1000
5.1-channel speaker system. Here’s the
deal: The heart of the ProCinema 1000
system is its highly sophisticated, dual-
surround mid/bass driver—a driver
so good that Definitive uses virtually
the same design in its new $3798/pair
Mythos ST stereo speakers. Highs from
Definitive’s aluminum-dome tweeters can
be crisp, but not enough to be distracting.
Throw in one of Definitive’s traditionally
strong subwoofers, and you’ve got a well-
balanced system that sounds astonishingly
potent and refined for its size and price.
If you’re willing to spend a bit more
to get smoother highs and a somewhat
better sub, consider the Quad L-ite 5.1-
channel speaker system for $1999. It
is just as good a deal as the Definitive
package, and the speaker enclosures offer
drop-dead-gorgeous woodwork, to boot.
You could buy this system just to listen
to music, but most buyers will want to add
a good HD display. As a place to start,
may we suggest Vizio’s VX32L—a 32"
flat-panel LCD HDTV—for about $600.
For those unfamiliar with the brand, let us
simply say that Vizio HDTVs are to the
world of displays what Oppo products
are to the world of high-tech universal
players—that is, they invariably deliver
great value for money.
Finally, we encourage you to add a good
HD DVD or Blu-ray Disc player. Once
you experience movies in HD, we think
you’ll find that high-definition video, like
high-resolution audio, is something you
won’t want to be without. CM
• Onkyo TX-SR605 A/V receiver ($599,
The Perfect Vision, review pending)
• Oppo DV-981HD ($229, this issue)
• Definitive Technology Pro Cinema 1000
5.1-channel speaker system ($1649,
Issue 168)
• Optional upgrades:
Vizio VX32L 32" LCD HDTV ($599)
Quad L-ite loudspeaker system ($1999,
The Perfect Vision, Issue 78)
HD DVD or Blu-ray player (any)
 The Compact Disc Turns 25

•
You ve
Robert Harley

y Looking back from the

vantage point of 2007, it seems
inevitable that the Compact Disc
b
would revolutionize and dominate the
packaged-music market for more than two
a

Come
decades (and counting). But 25 years ago, on
October 1, 1982, when the CD was launched in the
B
U.S., this new music-carrier’s fate was uncertain.
The public had just overwhelmingly rejected another
optical-disc format, the Laservision disc, that did for
movie watching what the CD promised to do for
,

music listening. But the Compact Disc, after a slow

start, became a juggernaut. For audiophiles, the CD
y

engenderedalove/haterelationshipthathasgradually
given way to greater acceptance of the
a

format. CD sound quality has improved

immensely since the 1980s, and is now capa-
W
ble of a fidelity unimaginable on that
Long
October day twenty five years ago.
a

A Compact Disc
Timeline 1973 Two Philips 1977 Philips sets up 1978 Philips shows
1970 Philips begins engineers begin dedicated laboratory to refrigerator-sized disc
development of analog- experiments on analog- develop next-generation player to Philips’ Board
based optical video disc, based music carrier music-carrier based on of Directors
considers audio version employing optical-disc optical-disc technology
called “ALP” (Audio technology and digital encoding
Long Play)

The
The Absolute
Absolute Sound
Sound September 2007 43
September 2007 43
T
he CD’s history goes back long At about the same time, the Japanese with a huge Japanese electronics company

before the late 1970s, when work
began in earnest to develop a suc-
cessor to the LP. Engineers at a Philips
research laboratory in The Netherlands
saw the potential for an optical-based
audio-carrier while working on the devel-
opment of an optical videodisc. Digital-
audio technology was in its infancy, and
the format they envisioned was analog.
This research project produced the Laser-
vision videodisc, an analog
format that failed miserably in
the marketplace.
The optical technology
developed for Laservision
would, however, soon collide
headfirst with the rapidly de-
veloping technology of digital
audio. In 1977, Philips estab-
lished a laboratory to explore
the possibility of creating a
next-generation music-carrier
that married the company’s The Sony CDP-101,
optical technology with the the first production
emerging field of digital rep- CD player
resentation of audio signals.
A year later, Philips engineers
demonstrated a prototype optical-disc
player for the Philips Board of Directors,
and got the green light to proceed with
development. (This prototype employed
Delta-Sigma modulation rather than
pulse-code modulation, the encoding
scheme that was eventually adopted for
CD. Ironically, Direct Stream Digital, or
DSD, the encoding used in Super Audio
CD, is essentially Delta-Sigma modula-
tion.)
Philips was driven to develop an optical
disc for several reasons; as the inventor
of the Compact Cassette, it was well
aware of the revenue stream (more like
a revenue torrent) that accrues to patent
holders of widely adopted technologies.
Second, as owner of Polygram Records,
Philips sought a music-carrier that was
less expensive to manufacture than LPs,
didn’t have the return problems of vinyl
records, was small enough for car and
portable use, and didn’t use petroleum
products in its manufacture.
electronics giants were working on their
own music-carriers based on optical-disc
technology; Sony demonstrated its disc
player in 1978. In March, 1979, just two
weeks after unveiling its new disc format
to the press, Philips engineers loaded
their prototype player into the first-class
section of a KLM plane and headed
for Tokyo. (The plane had several seats
removed to accommodate the two square
meters of hardware—about the size of
a small refrigerator—that was the proto-
type player.) The engineers made the
rounds of the Japanese electronics manu-
facturers to show them their creation and
find a partner to develop and market this
new music-carrier.
Philips headed East for a very good
reason. Although the company had con-
siderable expertise in optical technology, it
didn’t have the Japanese companies’ skill
in integrated-circuit development and
manufacturing, digital-processing technol-
ogy, error-correction algorithms, channel
coding, and other digital arts (areas in which
Sony had particular strengths). In fact, the
decoding and error-correction chip in the
first CD players was the densest and most
complex integrated circuit ever employed
in a consumer-electronics product. The
Japanese were also unmatched in effi-
cient manufacturing on a massive scale.
Moreover, Philips realized that partnering
•
could avert a potential format war that
might doom the new disc.
As the Philips executives and engineers
were in their hotel room packing up to
return to The Netherlands, Sony Vice
President Norio Ohga phoned the hotel
and the marriage was born. In August of
1979, engineers from the two companies
met and shared the designs of their re-
spective disc players and mapped
out a plan for jointly developing
the new format.
It should be recognized that
creating a new audio format
involves not only developing the
format itself, but also building the
infrastructure for manufacturing
players and discs, for quality as-
surance protocols and devices,
for authoring tools to create the
content, and for professional
support hardware. The entire
chain, from analog source-tape
to replicated disc, had to be built
from scratch. Moreover, this
new format required an unprec-
edented level of manufacturing precision;
the pits in a CD surface were among the
smallest manufactured structures. Clearly,
this was a monumental undertaking,
and one best tackled by more than one
company.
By June of 1980, the CD specifica-
tion—the so-called “Red Book” (see
accompanying article)—was finalized.
Less than two years later, Philips and
Sony showed the first production players.
Philips began manufacturing discs at its
Hanover, Germany factory and Sony
opened a factory in Shinzuoka. Billy Joel’s
52nd Street CD was the first commercially
released CD. (Interestingly, Philips’ first
CD factory was just down road from the
place where Emile Berliner manufactured
the first flat phonograph discs 93 years
earlier.)
Conductor Herbert von Karajan was
one of the first musicians to hear the
new medium of CD. At an April, 1981
press conference demonstrating CD
sound, Karajan proclaimed: “This is a

1978 Sony
demonstrates its own,
potentially competitive,
prototype disc player
1979 Solid-state laser
life increased from
dozens of hours to
hundreds of hours
1979 Philips press
conference unveiling CD
prototype (March)
1979 Philips engineers
demonstrate CD
prototype for Japanese
electronics companies
(March)

The Absolute Sound September 2007 45


History
technological advance that is comparable
with the changeover from gas lamps to
electric light.” He was widely quoted in
the mainstream press as having said,
upon hearing CD for the first time, “All
else is gaslight.”
The CD format officially went on
sale in Japan on August 31, 1982, with
the U.S. launch on October 1. Sony and
Philips each offered one player initial-
ly—Sony, the CDP-101, and Philips, the
CD1010 (sold in the U.S. as the Magnavox
FD1000). The CDP-101, which had a U.S.
retail price of $900, got is name from the
launch date—10-1-82. Just 16 titles were
available at CD’s launch.
Despite its long-term success, CD was
slow to take off. Only 35,000 players were
sold in 1983, and it wasn’t until 1986 that
CD players broke the million-player-per-
year mark (U.S. sales numbers; multiply by
three for approximate worldwide sales).
In the great tradition of high-end
audio, specialty manufacturers applied
high-end design techniques, critical-lis-
tening skills, and the fundamental ethos
of pursuing quality improvements to
this new medium. The first “audiophile”
CD player came from a then-tiny British
company called Meridian Audio. Intro-
1979 Sony and Philips
join forces to develop
CD (March)
46 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Compact Disc Turns 25
duced at the June 1984 Consumer Elec-
tronics Show, Meridian’s MCD was heret-
ical in some circles: How could “Perfect
Sound Forever” be any more perfect? But
the MCD, with all-new audio circuitry,
showed the world that the CD format
had more potential than was revealed by
the first mass-market machines.
The MCD established a trend of high-
end companies modifying mass-market
players. Until high-end companies began
making their own CD players from scratch
(along with separate transports and digital-
to-analog converters) in about 1987, au-
diophiles who wanted better sound bought
modified players. Remember California
Audio Labs? Kinergetics Research? Theta
Digital’s “Frankenstein”?
The late 1980s and early 1990s saw a
surge of high-end design talent applied
to improving the sound quality possible
from this relatively new format. Designers
who had spent their careers working in the
analog domain suddenly found themselves
dealing with digital filters, MSB trimming,
clock jitter, digital input receivers, and
other such circuits. Although many lacked
digital expertise, they brought to bear
their passion for improving sound quality,
along with keen musical ears, to take CD
playback to the next
level. Some compa-
The Meridian MCD—
nies relied on outside
the first “audiophile”
Compact Disc playe r consultants to supply
the digital expertise,
with the companies’
analog designers sup-
plying the CD players’
analog circuits.
This explosion
of high-end design
talent applied to the
CD format gave us
such technologies
as software-based
digital filters running
on DSP chips
1979 First meeting 1980 Red Book
between Sony and specification finalized
Philips engineers (June)
(August)
Who Invented
the CD?
We tend to think of remarkable
inventions as the stroke of
individual genius. But the
CD’s creation was the result of
contributions from engineers of
many diverse disciplines, as well
as unprecedented collaboration
between two companies that had
long been competitors. Although
the CD doesn’t have any single
inventor, two individuals stand out
as the driving forces behind the
format. They are Dr. Kees Immink
of Philips and Dr. Toshitada Doi
of Sony. These two engineers
led their respective teams in the
development effort, and each
contributed significantly to the final
format. For example, Dr. Immink
provided much of the optical
technology, and Dr. Doi developed
the Cross-Interleaved Reed-Solomon
Coding (CIRC) error-correction
system, without which the CD
would not work.
(Wadia, Theta, Krell), true 20-bit hand-
trimmed DACs (UltraAnalog), circuits
that counteracted the distortions added
by analog-to-digital conversion (Spectral),
heroic implementations of analog and
digital circuitry (Mark Levinson), and
the High-Definition Compatible Digital
(HDCD) process.
These early digital pioneers greatly
advanced the art of CD playback and
revealed both the potential and limita-
tions of 44.1kHz/16-bit PCM audio
stored on an optical disc. The CD’s de-
velopers in The Netherlands and Japan
could have never foreseen the huge tech-
nological improvements rendered in CD
playback hardware by high-end designers,
nor imagined the vastly improved sound
of which CD was capable.
1981 Sony shows
prototype “Goronta”
CD player at Japanese
Audio Fair

CD Sound
Quality
CD Sound
Quality—Then
and Now
There’s no doubt that today’s CDs sound
infinitely better than discs produced in
the first years of the format. But why
should there have been such a dramatic
improvement in sound quality when
the CD’s basic quality-determining
specifications—44.1kHz sampling fre-
quency and 16-bit quantization—have
remained fixed?
A look into how CD mastertapes were
created in the early days of CD tells
much of the story. Here’s a hypothetical
scenario that is grounded in the reality
of the mid-1980s. A record company
wanting to reissue a title in the new CD
format sends someone to the tape vault to
The Compact Disc Turns 25
retrieve the “mastertape.” The technician
grabs the first tape of that title he finds.
The problem is that this “master” is
anything but. The original two-track tape
to which the album was mixed was copied
to make a “safety master.” This safety
master was taken to the LP mastering
room to cut LPs. After the LP mastering
engineer and the record’s producer settled
on signal processing such as equalization,
compression, and summing the bass to
mono to overcome some of the LP’s
limitations, another tape copy was created
with that signal processing on it, so that
the mastering engineer didn’t have to
recreate the processing every time he
cut another lacquer. Sometimes, a safety
master was made from the equalized and
compressed LP cutting master. This is the
tape our technician grabbed from the vault
to make the CD. It is four (often many
more) generations removed from the
How the
Compact Disc
got its Name
There’s a good reason that the
new optical disc format was named
the Compact Disc. CD co-inventor
Philips developed, in 1962, another
popular audio format with the
word “Compact” in its title: the
Compact Cassette. Developed as a
replacement for 4" open-reel tape
for voice recording, the Compact
Cassette, or simply the Cassette as
it came to be known, went on to
become a primary music-carrier.
Although the Cassette was not
designed for music, improvements
in hardware technology and the
invention of Dolby noise reduction
turned a voice-transcription format
into a worldwide music-carrier.

How the CD,s Specifications Were Determined

1982 Philips shows first The CD was very nearly a 100mm disc that would hold an hour of music rather than a 120mm disc
production CD player
that could store up to 80 minutes of audio. Philips argued that 60 minutes was longer than the LP,
(April)
and that any longer playing time was superfluous. Sony’s Vice President, Norio Ohga, a classically
trained musician (at the Berlin Conservatory), reportedly said: “Let the music dictate the technical
specifications,” and suggested that a playing time of 74 minutes would hold the longest known
recording of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. The longer playing time not only accommodated longer
works but, ultimately, also encouraged record companies to offer “bonus” tracks that greatly
increased CD’s appeal and helped to propel its success in the market.
Philips argued strenuously that the new carrier should employ 14-bit quantization because the
state-of-the-art digital-to-analog converters could only handle 14 bits. Sony insisted that the CD
should be a 16-bit format, and asserted that DAC technology would soon catch up. To the great
1982 First CDs fortune of music lovers, 16 bits became the standard (although 16 bits is not enough to capture all
manufactured at the sounds that humans can hear).
Philips’ Hanover factory
We take for granted the fact that the audio on CD is sampled 44,100 times per second (44.1kHz).
(August)
But where did this number come from? We know from Nyquist’s sampling theorem that the
sampling rate must be at least twice as high as the highest audio frequency to be encoded. In
practice, the sampling frequency must be even higher to allow a “transition band” for the digital
filter, which must pass all frequencies up to 20kHz (the putative upper limit of human hearing)
yet have massive attenuation (100dB) at half the sampling frequency. The higher the sampling
frequency, the shorter the playing time for a given disc size, or the larger the disc for a given playing
time. These parameters suggest a sampling frequency anywhere between 44kHz and 50kHz.
But why precisely 44.1kHz?
1982 CD launched in The answer lies in the storage media available in the late 1970s, when the Compact Disc was
Japan (August 31, 1982) first conceived. Digital audio was in its infancy and dedicated digital-audio recorders were rare and
expensive. So the format’s creators turned to the ¾" U-Matic videocassette format, widely used in
broadcasting. This video format could be converted to store pulse-code modulation (PCM) audio
data as black-and-white video information. It turned out that the black-and-white frame rate of
30 frames-per-second matched up mathematically with a sampling frequency of 44.1kHz. The ¾"
U-Matic videocassette thus became the standard for CD mastertapes, and the familiar 44.1kHz
specification entered the audiophile lexicon.

48 September 2007 The Absolute Sound


CD Sound
Quality
original master, and has been processed
to counteract the LPs limitations.
In the early days, the record’s artist
and producer typically weren’t involved
in the analog-to-digital transfer process;
it was seen by record-company executives
as a purely technical procedure that was
essentially perfect. The analog output
from the tape machine was fed into an
analog-to-digital processor that employed
as many as six op-amps in the signal
path, converters that achieved perhaps
12–14 bits of true resolution, and had
horrific timing accuracy (jitter was not yet
recognized as a source of degradation in
digital audio).
The analog tape was transferred in its
raw form to a ¾" U-Matic video cassette
from which an edited digital master would
be created. Because record executives
didn’t want the listening public to hear
any hint of noise or analog tape hiss
from their new CDs, they imposed rigid
protocols on how the CD mastertape
was made—protocols that ended up
degrading fidelity. Here’s an example. To
prevent analog tape hiss from ending up
on the disc, engineers creating the CD
mastertape were instructed to “follow
the fade” on the analog tape by using
a digital-domain fader. That is, at the
fade out of a song, the engineer would
gradually attenuate the level in the digital
domain so that the analog tape hiss would
be attenuated as well. This technique
introduced two significant problems.
First, the early digital-editors used to
attenuate the signal (the Sony DAE-
1000 and DAE-1100) lacked sufficient
DSP horsepower to perform 16-bit math
on the fly. So they truncated the 16-bit
words to 14 bits whenever the fader
was moved from unity gain. The editor
work-surface even featured a bright red
LED to indicate that the signal was being
truncated. Second, attenuating the signal
in the digital domain resulted in fewer bits
being available to represent the signal.
As a result, low-level signals—including
reverberation decay—were coarse, grainy,
and dry. Reverb decay sounded cut-
1982 First CDs 1982 CD launched in
manufactured at Sony’s U.S. (October 1, 1982)
Shinzuoka factory
(September)
50 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Compact Disc Turns 25
The Nine Most Significant High-End CD-
Playback Developments (in chronological order)
1. Meridian MCD (1984)
As the first audiophile CD player, the
MCD revealed the importance of a
player’s analog circuitry and showed
how high-end design techniques could
improve upon “Perfect Sound Forever.”
2. Esoteric VRDS Transport
Mechanism (1987)
A few brave high-end companies avoided
using cheap plastic CD transport mecha-
nisms by making their own, but Esoteric
applied unprecedented engineering
effort, design expertise, and fanatical
dedication to quality to create what is by
a wide margin the finest CD-transport
mechanism ever developed, a distinction
VRDS holds to this day.
3. PS Audio Digital Link (1988)
The Digital Link was the first separate
high-end digital-to-analog converter,
sparking an explosion of design work
in this important category. It was soon
followed by the Arcam Black Box and
the more ambitious Theta DSPro.
4. Spectral SDR-1000 (1989)
Keith Johnson’s groundbreaking CD
player included, among other innova-
tions, “conjugate” circuitry that “undid”
some of the distortions introduced by
analog-to-digital conversion. The Spectral
SDR-2000/3000 (1995) and SDR-4000S
(2007) are equally revolutionary, land-
mark products in their own right.
5. Software-based digital
filtering (1989)
Rather than accept the compromises
of off-the-shelf digital filter chips
from third parties, Wadia, Krell, and
Theta (and, later, Meitner and Spectral)
created their own filters from general-
purpose DSP chips running custom soft-
ware. The first examples are the Wadia
2000, Krell 64-X, and Theta DSPro.
1983 35,000 players
sold this year
6. Jitter-reduction techniques
(1989)
In the late 1980s it became apparent that
two bit-for-bit-identical digital-audio
bitstreams could exhibit an analog-like
variability in sound quality. Although this
idea was heretical at first, it soon became
accepted that timing variations (jitter) in
the DAC’s “word clock” were responsible.
CD sound quality improved significantly
when high-end designers began imple-
menting jitter-reduction techniques.
7. UltraAnalog 20-bit DACs
(1990)
Despite being labeled as “20-bit”,
monolithic (integrated circuit) DACs
delivered at most 14 bits of true resolu-
tion. UltraAnalog appeared on the
scene and created true 20-bit devices
of unmatched accuracy, performing
100,000 measurements on each DAC
and then trimming the DAC’s resistor
values by hand-soldering tiny metal-
film resistors on the resistor-ladder
“rungs.” The result was unprecedented
low-level linearity and resolution along
with a quantum leap in sound quality.
8. Mark Levinson No.30
Digital-to-Analog Converter
(1992)
By realizing the most ambitious imple-
mentation of CD-playback technology
to date, the No.30 showed not only how
much digital and analog design details
mattered, but also revealed that CDs con-
tained more musical information than
was previously thought. The No.30 set
the standard in CD playback for years.
9. High-Definition
Compatible Digital (1995)
HDCD employs extremely clever tricks to
overcome the limitations of 44.1kHz/16-
bit digital audio, resulting in a whole-
sale elevation of CD sound quality. In
addition, the 8-x oversampling filter built
into the Pacific Microsonics PDM-100 and
PMD-200 decoding chips, widely used in
players of the time), made all CDs sound
better, not just HDCD-encoded ones. If
HDCD had become a universal standard,
we’d all be enjoying better CD sound
today.

CD Sound
Quality
off, making the recorded acoustic seem
smaller, among other problems.
It didn’t take long for artists and
producers, outraged by the terrible
sound quality of CD releases that
bore their names, to demand
involvement in CD mastertape
preparation. Consequently, making
a CD mastertape became a
creative process, just as cutting an
LP lacquer was.
This beneficial trend was
accompanied by dramatic im-
provements in analog-to-digital
converters. Stand-alone ADCs,
designed for optimum sound
quality, began to replace the
ADCs built into the Sony PCM-
1600 Series mastering processors.
Many of these ADCs incorporated
precise clocks for low jitter. It’s
worth noting that jitter in the
ADC (which controls the timing of when
the samples are taken) is just as sonically
pernicious as jitter in a DAC clock. Unlike
DAC clock jitter, which is determined
by the particular playback hardware, the
sonic degradation imposed by an ADC’s
clock jitter is permanently encoded in
the signal. Once the damage is done,
nothing can remove it. Unfortunately, the
mentality at some record companies, early
in the CD era, held that once a digital
master was created, there was no need
for the old-fashioned analog tape, which
was often destroyed after the transfer to
digital.
In the mid-1990s, mastering engineers
began securing access to 20-bit conversion
and 20-bit editing systems. Although the
final product (the CD mastertape) was still
only 16 bits, 20-bit mastering improved
sound quality because all the intermediate
processing could be performed at higher
mathematical precision (less rounding
error). The 20-bit source could then be
“redithered” to 16 bits and retain some
of the resolution of the 20-bit source.
Accompanying all these improvements
on the professional side was a massive
influx of high-end design talent applied
to CD playback hardware. The result is
that CD sound quality of the mid-1980s
pales by comparison to what’s possible
today.
52 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
1984 Sony ships first 1984 Meridian
car CD player (April) introduces first
“audiophile” CD player,
the MCD (June)
How the Compact Disc Works
1984 Sony’s Digital
Audio Disc Corporation
(DADC) ships first U.S.-
made Compact Disc,
Bruce Springsteen’s Born
in the USA (September)
1984 Sony introduces
D5 Discman, world’s
first portable CD player
(November)
A CD is embedded with a spiral track of
“pits” in its surface that represents
digital data. This surface, called “land,”
contains just as much information as the pits.
A laser beam is focused on the
spinning disc’s spiral track and
reflected to a photodetector—
1984 230,000 players
a semiconductor material that sold this year
converts light to an electrical
signal. The laser light
reflected from the disc to the
photodetector is modulated by
the pits; the modulation patterns
contain the digital data.
Specifically, the pit depth is one-quarter
the wavelength of the playback laser.
The laser beam is reflected from the
disc surface (land) or pit bottom at full
strength to the photodetector. But when
1985 960,000 players
sold this year
the beam encounters a land-to-pit or pit-to-
land transition, part of the beam is reflected from the
land and part from the pit. The additional distance the beam
travels to the pit bottom and back introduces a 180° phase
shift (180° is half a wavelength) relative to the beam reflected
from the land. The result is that the two beam components
cancel, resulting in a reduced output from the photodetector.
These land-to-pit or pit-to-land transitions represent binary “1.”
All other surfaces (land or pit bottom) represent binary “0.”
The digital data aren’t represented directly. Instead, a
modulation scheme is employed that increases storage 1985 Sony introduces
8x oversampling in the
efficiency, makes the recovered signal self-clocking, and CDP-605ES, which is
prevents the possibility of digital codes that are impossible also first player to offer
to represent in pits (successive “1”s, for example). This optional outboard D/A
converter (DAS-702ES)
modulation scheme is called eight-to-fourteen modulation
(EFM) and is vital to the format. In an EFM encoder, each chunk
 The Compact Disc Turns 25
How the
CD Works 1986 2.1 million players
sold this year

of eight bits is converted

to 14 bits using a look-
up table. EFM encoding
results in a bitstream in
which successive binary “1”s
are separated by a minimum
of two “0”s and a maximum of
nine “0”s. When converted to
pit and land, EMF encoding
produces nine discrete pit
or land lengths (100 is the
shortest pit, 10000000000
is the longest). These nine
discrete pit and land lengths
produce a signal from the
photodetector that looks like
nine superimposed sinewaves
(called the “eye pattern”) of varying
frequency, from 196kHz (the
longest pit or land) to 720kHz
(the shortest pit or land).
Although this so-called “RF
signal” looks analog, the
digital data are encoded
in the zero-crossing
transitions. Each 14-bit word
is appended by three “merging
bits” to maintain the rule that
successive 1’s must be separated by
a minimum of two 0’s. Although
EMF encoding more than
doubles the number of bits
that must be stored, it is
actually more efficient than
direct representation of the
digital data.
What Exactly is the “Red Book”?
Audiophiles correctly use the term “Red Book” to describe the CD
format, but incorrectly to refer to any 44.1kHz/16-bit digital audio,
or even to pulse-code modulation (PCM, the CD’s encoding format) in
general.
So, what exactly is the “Red Book,” and why would we describe an audio
format with such a name?
When Sony and Philips jointly developed the CD, they needed a
1987 5.5 million players specification that described the format in detail for CD factories. When
sold this year
a CD replicator bought a license to manufacturer CDs (for $5000), it
received a copy of this 8.5" by 11" document, which happened to have
a red cover. (Each CD format has its own book and colored cover. The
book that described the CD-ROM format, for example, has a yellow
cover and is called the “Yellow Book.”)
I had a copy of the “Red Book” on my desk when I worked in CD
mastering. It describes the disc’s physical parameters, encoding and decoding
scheme, optical system, and types of data errors and maximum allowable error
rates, among other things. The reference to 44.1kHz/16-bit linear PCM
encoding occupies a miniscule fraction of the book’s contents, yet the
1988 High-end term “Red Book” is now firmly entrenched as meaning 44.1kHz/ 16-bit
companies begin
digital audio.
making CD-playback
hardware (as opposed The Red Book contains some interesting provisions that aren’t widely
to modifying mass- known. For example, the CD was designed to carry 4-channel audio
market players) as an option, but at a slower sampling frequency and shorter word
length. This option was, obviously, never used. Another unused option
is the provision for graphics, text, or other data in the disc’s “subcode.”
The CD has eight subcode channels, designated P–W, with each having a
data rate of a relatively slow 7.35 kilobits-per-second. The “P” channel simply
“goes high” (binary 1) for two seconds before the start of each track to
allow cheap CD players to find track starts; the Q channel contains all
1988 CD becomes the timing and track information that you see on your player’s display;
mass-market product,
the R–W channels are reserved for other use, such as graphics or text.
defined as installed base
No CD players that I know of have ever been able to access the R–W
of 10 million units
subcode. I’ve seen R–W subcode graphics displayed experimentally and
can tell you why they never caught on—it takes an agonizingly long
time (because of the slow data rate) to “paint” a single still graphic on a
video display.
Interestingly, the Red Book doesn’t specify the CD’s maximum playing
time. Rather, it specifies the disc’s rotational speed (linear velocity), track pitch
(the space between tracks of pits), inner starting radius, and outer ending

w? radius. (CD’s are read from the inside out, with the disc speed varying
o 1988 First software-
based digital filter
from about 500 rpm on the inner radius to about 200 rpm at the
outer radius, which maintains a constant linear velocity as seen by the
n

(Wadia)
Did You K

Sony never used playback laser.) From these parameters one can infer the maximum
the advertising playing time. For many years after CD’s introduction, 74 minutes
slogan “Perfect was considered the upper limit of the CD format’s capacity. But by
Sound Forever” mastering a CD at the edges of the allowable parameters (slowest
to promote CD. possible linear velocity, soonest starting radius, latest ending radius,
Rather, Sony’s first CD- narrowest track pitch), one can make a CD with more than 80 minutes of
player ad featured a playing time that still conforms to the Red Book specification.
spotlight on a seat Our record-company clients at the time began asking for longer
at Carnegie Hall and longer playing times, and I was given the job of determining the
with the tag line 1989 Disc sales break maximum playing time we could reliably encode on a CD. Using the
25-million-per-year mark technique described above, we made, in 1988, a disc with a playing
“Seventh Row
Forever.” time of 80 minutes and 23 seconds.

54 September 2007 The Absolute Sound


How the
CD Works
CD
Manufacturing
CD manufacturing begins with a blank
master disc that is coated with a thin
layer of photoresist—a material that
changes its properties when exposed
to a certain wavelength of light. The
master disc is put on a CD mastering
machine’s turntable (analogous to an LP
cutting lathe) housed in a clean room.
The digital mastertape is played back,
with its output signal processed through
an EFM encoder, which also formats the
datastream and adds error-correction
data and subcode (track start and stop
times, for example). The EFM encoder
output is the datastream that will be
recorded on the disc, which has a data
rate of 4.3218 million-bits-per-second, of
which 1.41 million-bits-per-second is PCM
audio (the rest is the result of eight-to-
fourteen modulation, error correction,
and subcode).
As the mastering machine’s turntable
spins the master disc, a laser beam is
directed by a series of mirrors toward
the spinning glass master. The signal to
be recorded as pits on the master disc
(the output from the EFM encoder) is
amplified by a very fast amplifier whose
output is connected to an electro-optical
modulator. This device is a crystal whose
lattice structure shifts when a voltage
is applied across it. With no voltage
across the crystal, the laser beam passes
through the crystal and exposes the glass
master’s photoresist to create a pit. A
voltage applied across the crystal causes
the lattice structure to deflect the beam
away from the glass master, creating
land. This is how an electrical signal is
converted into modulated light, and then
to a physical representation in the master
glass photoresist. (Incidentally, you can
convert this “rejected beam” back to an
electrical signal, decode it, and monitor
the audio while cutting the master.)
The turntable holding the spinning
glass master moves slowly beneath the
fixed laser beam to create the spiral track
of pit and land. The distance between
adjacent tracks is 1.6µm, and the track-
pitch tolerance is ±0.1µm. (To put this
number in perspective, a human hair has
a diameter of about 75µm.) The turntable
and the mechanism that moves it employ
56 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
1989 Sonic Solutions 1990 UltraAnalog 1991 High-Definition
offers Macintosh-based
digital-audio editing
creates 20-bit hand-
trimmed DAC
Compatible Digital
(HDCD) invented
for CD mastertape
preparation
an air bearing, and the entire mastering machine is mounted on
an optical table suspended on air-isolation platforms.
When the disc is finished recording (from inside to
outside), the master disc is removed from the turntable and 1995 20-bit mastering
“developed” in a solution that etches away the areas that becomes widespread
have been exposed to the laser. The developed master is
then coated with silver to make it electrically conductive, and
electroplated with nickel in a chemical bath. This technique,
as well as the chemical composition of the bath, is identical to
that used to make metal parts for LP production. The nickel part
is peeled off the silvered master and can be used as a stamper.
Typically, however, the nickel part (the metal master) is again
electroplated to make a “metal mother” from which multiple
stampers can be made. (See my description of making LP metal
parts in Issue 172—the process is identical.) 1997 DVD launched
The stamper is inserted into an injection molding press
that is fed by a stream of polycarbonate beads about the size
and consistency of fine gravel. The heated polycarbonate is
injected into the mold containing the stamper, transferring
the stamper’s pit structure into a clear polycarbonate disc.
The clear disc is then coated with a very thin layer of aluminum
to make it optically reflective. The aluminum is sealed by applying
a liquid protective coating, which is cured by ultraviolet light.
The final step is to silk-screen the disc’s label.
Injection molding, metallization, protective coating, and
screen printing once took place in clean rooms inhabited by 1999 SACD launched
workers in “bunny suits” running the machinery. A particular
CD title would be processed in batches; the requisite number
of discs would be molded, then metalized, then coated,
and finally labeled. CDs today are now made in “monoline”
machines about the size of a minivan (but not as tall) that
perform all these functions without the need for humans
inside clean rooms. Polycarbonate pellets come in one end of
the monoline and finished discs emerge from the end. Today’s
CD factories have rows and rows of monoline modules (see the
accompanying photo of Sony’s DACD factory). TAS
1999 Some CD-related
patents begin to expire
2002 CD sales peak
TAS Forum

ILLUSTRATION BY IAN KELTIE

The Last I
began this project assuming that the current
generation of SACD players was probably
the last one, or at least the last major one, that
we would see. With Blu-ray and HD DVD each

CD Player?
offering some form of high-resolution audio, I
figured that these new discs would be the format
that music companies would use for high-quality
audio discs, if they focused on quality at all. Or,
I thought, maybe by the time music companies
focused anew on audio quality, downloaded music
would be so widely accepted that you would simply
Tom Martin select the quality level you wanted at the time of
download (e.g., $.99 for 128kbps MP3, $1.29
for lossless compression CD quality, $1.49 for
192kHz/24-bit lossless compression). Decoding
quality would then be up to a computer board or a
processor circuit, not players as we have come to
know them during the CD/SACD era.
58 September 2007 The Absolute Sound

TAS Forum
As I proceeded, I began to see that this
“last generation” logic could be true not
just of SACD but also of CD players in
general. In some audio design circles, there
is a sense that the highest quality chipsets
for Red Book CD decoding (standard
44kHz/16-bit CD) were designed a few
years ago, and that now the focus of
chipmakers is on cost reduction and in-
tegration with other system functions.
Of course, one could have applied
similar logic circa 1990 to turntables
and cartridges. And looking back, one
would have seemed rather foolish. Few
audiophiles today think that meaningful
turntable and cartridge development
stopped in the early 1990s. There is a
difference, however, between SACD/CD
players and turntables. Today’s turntable
and cartridge makers still possess all the
underlying machining, circuit design,
bonding and wiring technology needed
to make their products. In the case
of CD and SACD, most manufactur-
ers are dependent on third-party IC
designers. When development of those
key components stops, a major element
of player design cannot move forward.
There may of course be ways around this
issue, or it may be, as it was with tube
60 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Last CD Player
amplifier design, that core devices are not
the only place for improvement.
Under the assumption that this is
the end of the line for building SACD
machines, anyone with a moderate-to-
large collection of SACDs might wonder
which player will best extract the music
from his or her investment. And if we
are nearing the end of CD player devel-
opment, anyone might be interested in a
few key questions:
• How much difference do CD players
make in a system?
• What exactly are the benefits of very-
high-quality CD reproduction?
• How much do I need to spend to get
those benefits (if any)?
So, I gathered up a set of players—
the Oppo Digital DV-970HD, the Sony
Playstation 3, the Arcam DV137, the
Linn Unidisk 2.1, the Cary CD 306, the
Esoteric DV-60, and the Meitner CDSA—
to find the answers to those questions (of
course, I also had my reference Musical
Fidelity and Lector CD players). I chose
these players because a survey of TAS
editors suggested that each one was both
high quality and a good value. The astute
reader will have noticed that this group
of players covers the rather wide range of
prices from $149 to $10,000, and includes
both two-channel and multichannel
players in both full DVD and audio-only
forms. The astute reader will also have
noted that to answer the questions above
it makes sense to consider a wide range
of player designs and prices.
Subtle Differences
I started my evaluation of these players
using Red Book CD. Just about inevitably,
you will have more standard CDs than
SACDs, so Red Book CD performance
will matter. In fact, it will matter a lot.
After months of listening, one over-
arching element of listening to these
CD players stands out: The impact that
different players make on music is subtle.
If you want to argue that high-end audio
products are usually overpriced, CD
players would be a good place to start
the argument. I think a lot of musically-
oriented people would struggle to hear
the differences between, say, the Play-
station 3 ($599) and the Meitner ($10,000).
I wouldn’t radically disagree: I could be
happy with most of these players in my
very-high-end system (remember, we are
talking about a pre-screened group of
outstanding players). At the same time, I
ultimately came to feel that the expensive
players were worth their asking price in
certain systems.
Another way of saying that the dif-
ferences between players are subtle is to
observe that CD players are simply not
like speakers, amplifiers, or even pream-
plifiers. These components have obvious
impacts on the musicality and accuracy
of the music being reproduced. Speakers,
of course, have large frequency response
variations and large differences in polar
response, and interact tremendously with
the room. Amplifiers, too, interact differ-
ently with different speaker loads, and clip
in different ways and to different degrees,
as well as having frequency response,
noise, and distortion differences. That
CD players, with their well-defined task
and simple environment, sound more
alike than speakers and amplifiers isn’t
too surprising.
But I must also say that differences
between preamplifiers are greater—or, to
be strict, more obvious—than differences
between CD players. Since the job of the
CD player is more complex than the job
of the preamp, I find this a bit surprising.
The CD player has to decode a digital
data stream into an analog signal, then
amplify that signal. The amplification task
is a lot like the task of the preamp. The
preamp adds an attenuator and a switch,

TAS Forum
but realistically the CD player has the
tougher job.
Whether it is true or not, it sounds like
preamplifiers are more often “voiced” by
their designers to produce some small but
rather obvious coloration of the sound.
Some preamps will sound warmer than
others. Some preamps are more fine-
grained than others. CD players show
differences in these areas, but to my ear
it sounds more as if CD players were
voiced to a common target.
The net impact of this observation
is that if you are looking to tune your
system, a CD player is generally not the
place to look. That said, it would be a
mistake to conclude that the differences
between CD players are not meaningful.
Meaningful Differences
The meaningful differences among these
players are concentrated in a single area:
treble transient response. This simple
observation probably goes a long way
toward explaining why the differences
are not more obvious. Among these
players, frequency response is similar, and
overall transparency doesn’t differ greatly.
Soundstage depth, overall dynamic
presence, and the general sense of
warmth or coolness do differ among the
players. All of these factors, I conclude,
relate strongly to the way the players
handle treble transients.
Let’s start with the way the leading edge
of a high-frequency sound is handled.
Cymbals are very good at revealing
this, though you can hear the effects on
violin, piccolo, or tambourine, among
others. At one end of the spectrum, the
Oppo Digital player slightly enhances the
attack of these treble transients. A casual
observer might say that the Oppo sounds
bright, but without treble transients the
Oppo isn’t really balanced differently
than other players. A casual observer
might also say the Oppo is clearer
(more transparent) than other
players. I think this is not true,
because the slightly-too-sharp
leading edge of the Oppo actually
smears or masks the full effect of
treble sounds slightly. Finally, the
Oppo’s treble transient response can
make it sound a bit more dynamic than
62 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Last CD Player
some of the other players. I found the
Oppo seductive, but not fully accurate,
because of this.
While I am arguing that in this very
important area of treble reproduction the
Oppo isn’t really accurate, I’m pretty sure
that with the right ancillary equipment,
including speakers with a slightly rolled-
off soft-dome tweeter, the Oppo could
sound better than most of the other
players in this group. In selecting a CD
player you need to know whether you are
trying to optimize your current system
or whether you are building step by step
toward your ultimate system. In the latter
case, and with the right budget, you may
want to avoid specific system synergies.
Particularly with SACD/CD players,
since they are at the beginning of the
music reproduction chain, you would like
to avoid errors that can’t be corrected
later on in your system. I’m suggesting
here that treble transient errors are very
hard to correct later in the chain.
On the leading edge of transients the
Arcam DV137 also delivers a slightly hot
performance. I would say the Arcam is
more musical in the way it does this than
the Oppo, with the result that the Arcam
simply sounds more dynamic, at least on
Red Book CD, than the Oppo, and really
most of the other players here. The trade-
off is that the Arcam doesn’t sound quite
as smooth as some of the other players,
Obvious differences aren’t
always musically meaning-
ful, while subtle differences
often can be
and some treble detail is lost.
At the other end of the spectrum, the
Playstation 3 delivers a slightly rounded
initial treble transient. This makes it
sound ever-so-slightly smooth and warm.
The Linn and the Cary are more neutral
than the PS3, but still soften the initial
transient a bit. Many people will view this
as a desirable quality, and as far as I could
tell very little information is actually lost
by these players, particularly the Linn
and the Cary. Not only that, but the dif-
ferences between initial treble transients
on these players and on the most neutral
players here is very small, and my relative
judgment may have more to do with
my reference system than with actual
neutrality-ranking among the players.
The Esoteric and Meitner players
deliver a balanced performance on initial
treble transients, sounding controlled and
impactful at the same time. With dense
musical mixes (e.g., classic rock or Mahler),
the Estoeric and Meitner seemed just a
bit more composed and lifelike than the
other players. But where these machines
differ the most from the others is in the
handling of treble decay.
When a drumstick strikes a cymbal, the
sound slowly dies off or “decays.” The
Esoteric and the Meitner show that there
is more of this low-level sound than you
might have imagined on well-recorded
discs. This isn’t of interest simply for the

TAS Forum
weird analytical pursuits of misguided au-
diophiles. Transient decay matters because
this low-level information has a lot to do
with the sense of musical instruments
being in a real acoustic environment—a
sense of space. With proper low-level
treble information, music simply sounds
more natural and real. After months of
listening, I came to value this highly.
Perspective
If you listen to, say, the Cary CD 306 for
a long time, I think you will conclude that
it is a superb player, and you would be
right. It sounds, for example, remarkably
like my reference Musical Fidelity A5 CD
player (a player that has proven tough to
beat), and even a bit better in most areas.
And the Cary will decode SACD discs, as
well.
If you then listen to the Esoteric
DV-60, I think you will conclude that it
offers a slightly more refined treble per-
formance than the Cary. I thought this
was musically significant, but I would say
the difference was subtle and one you
might not notice without side-by-side
comparison. In addition, the Cary offers
bass depth and bass quality that for some
people would outshine the Esoteric.
Such is life with modern, well-designed
equipment. It might be convenient if
one manufacturer’s product performance
simply crushed another’s, but more often
than not we’re talking about small dif-
ferences, with one manufacturer leading
in one area and another manufacturer
leading in another. Personal preferences
and system-matching will carry the day in
such cases.
That said, I would argue that the differ-
ences in treble transient performance are
in the realm of information-retrieval and
information-loss. That is, when the treble
is done right, most of the information is
retrieved correctly and very little is lost.
This is important because information
once lost cannot be re-created. Other
differences, most obvious among them
being frequency balance, can be adjusted
relatively easily later in the chain.
SACD Performance
Up until now we have been talking about
the performance of these players on
64 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Last CD Player
standard CDs. But what about SACD?
In one sense, the SACD performance
of these players mirrors the CD perfor-
mance. What I’ve said above about Red
Book CD performance differences tends
to holds true to a smaller degree with
SACD. But that doesn’t tell anything like
the whole story, particularly with the less
expensive players.
On SACD, the Oppo’s slightly enriched
treble transients were less noticeable. I
might call the Oppo a good CD player
and a very good SACD player. In contrast,
on SACD the Sony’s treble softness was
even more noticeable. I would call the
Sony a very good CD player and a good
SACD player.
With proper
treble
information,
music sounds
more natural
The Arcam and the Linn to my mind
sounded slightly less robust on SACD
than they did on CD. This could be
because SACDs often are a little more
brightly balanced, but in any event
the Arcam seemed to lose some of its
dynamic verve and the Linn some of its
transparency on SACD.
From this, it would seem that you can’t
simply select a player that is automatically
ideal on both Red Book CD and SACD.
Of course, many of us have a turntable
and a CD player, so there is no reason,
other than expense or space, why you
couldn’t have separate CD and SACD
players—each chosen for its merits on
those specific kinds of discs.
Technical Insight?
In the case of the Cary, the Esoteric, and
the Meitner, the observation holds true
that their qualities on CD and SACD are
quite closely related. In the case of the
Esoteric and Meitner players, this may be
due to a technical quirk. Both the Meitner
and the Esoteric convert Red Book
CD into a DSD format (the bitstream
approach used by SACD). In other words,
you could say that the Meitner and the
Esoteric are simply SACD players, and
that standard CD sounds a lot like SACD
because with these players it is SACD. Of
course, that isn’t true for the data on the
disc, simply for the decoding method.
In any event, the qualities that I found
special about the Esoteric and Meitner
players were similar (treble transient per-
formance). I find this important because
it suggests that, practically speaking,
SACD may be important to many of us
with big Red Book CD collections more
because of DSD’s superior decoding
approach than because of the SACD
discs themselves.
The Esoteric player provides a further
suggestion that the DSD decoding
method is a major factor in the treble
performance of these machines. The
DV-60 allows three different decoding
methods for Red Book CD to be selected
via the front panel. Two of these (FIR
and RDOT) are conventional digital-
to-analog conversion approaches. The
third converts CD to DSD and then
decodes it. I liked the Esoteric with the
FIR approach, and thought it a very good
player, comparable to but less dynamic
than the Cary. With the Esoteric set to
DSD conversion mode, however, it came
into its own, revealing the special treble
qualities noted above.
Big is Small and Small is Big?
I’ve said above that the differences
between these players are subtle. That is
certainly true, and I’ll bet we could get a
panel of listeners to confirm it by getting
them confused in a blind test about which
player was playing. I would also think that
the same panel, when presented with
three of my favorite speakers—the mbl
101e, the Avantgarde Duo, and the Sound
Labs A-1—would easily tell them apart.
What I find surprising is that I think I
could more easily live with a random
choice from among those very different
speakers than I could with a randomly
selected CD player from among these
subtly different players. Obvious differ-
ences aren’t always musically meaningful,
while subtle differences can be. TAS
 The
What are the
absolute best-
sounding and
most musically
worthy CDs,
SACDs, and
DVD-A discs?
Crème
de laCrème
Our senior
editors share
their top picks. in Digital
Wayne Garcia Robert E. Greene
Bach: Sonatas and Partitas Mahler: Symphony No. 5
(Nathan Milstein) [DG, CD] [Water Lily Acoustics, SACD]
Milstein gives one of the great performances of Bach’s In surround, more like a great orchestra in concert in a fine
masterpieces for solo violin. The DG engineers captured his hall than any other recording I am aware of. The Adagietto
Stradivarius’ glorious tone and dynamics. especially is ravishingly beautiful. [Honesty over modesty: I
devised the algorithm to make Kavi Alexander’s stereo into
Jeff Buckley: Live at Sine-e surround, assisted in its practical execution by the distinguished
[Columbia/Legacy, CD] editor/masterer Dawn Frank.]
This brilliant solo set underlines Buckley’s genius as a singer,
guitarist, and songwriter. The sound is intensely intimate and The Sheffield/Leinsdorf Sessions, Volume 1:
“there,” with remarkable air and dynamic range for a pop Works of Prokofiev, Debussy, and Wagner
recording. [Sheffield Lab, CD]
This is a landmark of realistic orchestral sound, albeit in a
Ligeti: Le Grand Macabre rather dry space. The Debussy Afternoon of a Faun is especially
[Sony, CD] outstanding. (Volume 2 is also recommended.)
This 1998 live recording from Paris is magically three-
dimensional, focused, and dynamically explosive, with an eerie The Fenby Legacy: Eric Fenby conducts works
sense of the theater’s ambience that makes you feel part of the of Delius [Unicorn-Kanchana, CD]
event. A historical monument: Fenby helped Delius write these
exquisite final works. Half of this two-CD set is recorded
Frank Sinatra: Sinatra at the Sands with a Soundfield one-point microphone, and those items are
[Capitol, CD] pinnacles of sonic naturalness.
Recorded in 1966 with the Basie big band,
this disc has the kind of Ysaÿe, Kreisler, Bach: Arturo Delmoni
presence that will compel plays works for solo violin. [Water Lily
you to mix a martini, Acoustics, reissue available from John
lower the lights, and let Marks Records]
yourself be transported to As a violinist, I had to have a violin disc and felt
a more innocent era. diffident about recommending my own sonic demo
disc. So I picked this one with no hesitation: close-up,
but superbly natural timbre, huge reverberant space expanding
behind.
66 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
 The Créme de la Créme in Digital

Chris Martens Paul Seydor

Gary Burton: Like Minds
[Concord, SACD]
This high-resolution, multichannel recording offers an
astounding 3-D mix that places the listener directly on stage in
the center of an ensemble that includes Gary Burton, Chick
Corea, Roy Haynes, Dave Holland, and Pat Metheny.
David Chesky: Urban Concertos
[Chesky Records, SACD]
Vibrant, energetic, exciting, these new concertos demonstrate
Chesky’s constant ability to reinvent himself. The clean, natural
reproduction argues once again for the effectiveness of his
single‑point mike technique.

Steve Strauss: Just Like Love Baltic Voices 1

[Stockfisch, SACD]
Steve Strauss creates extraordinarily moving contemporary
folk music infused with subtle jazz/blues inflections. German
producer Günter Pauler captures Strauss’ signature sound in
a breathtaking recording that offers a cornucopia of sonic
textures and tone colors.
[Harmonia Mundi, SACD]
Among major‑label producers, Robina Young is the most
consistently adventurous, expanding the recorded repertoire
from pre‑baroque to contemporary. These lovely choral pieces
from the Balkans are reproduced in some of the most beautiful
choral sound I know.

David Chesky: Urban Concertos Joel Fan: World Keys

[Chesky Records, SACD]
Many listeners associate David Chesky with his record label,
but he is also a fine composer whose angular, jazzy concertos
remind me of Bartók’s works. The sound is pure Chesky:
delicate, clear, and three-dimensional.
[Reference Recordings, CD]
This unusual program of piano pieces from different countries
embodies multiculturalism at its most illuminating. Keith
Johnson’s stunningly realistic recording is what we’ve come to
expect from this venerable audiophile label.

Jack Bruce: Shadows In The Air Mahler: Symphony No. 5

[Silverline, DVD-Audio]
Cream bassist extraordinaire Jack Bruce has teamed with
veteran sidemen (including Cream bandmate Eric Clapton)
to create this powerful, evocative recording. Best of all, this
tastefully-made disc conveys realistic dynamics and a live-from-
the-studio feel.
[Water Lilly Acoustics, SACD]
There is so much nonsense written about dynamic range
(especially regarding vinyl sources) that Kavi Alexander’s
magnificent recording should be required listening for
everyone—no compression, no limiting. If it seems low in
overall level, wait until the climaxes come along.

Alan Taffel
Nils Lofgren: Live Acoustic [Vision Music, CD]
Some recordings pinpoint every system’s flaws. Others, like this one,
bring out their glories. To listen is to eavesdrop on an intimate concert
showcasing Lofgren’s best songs, sweet voice, and absolutely mind-
boggling guitar artistry.

Michael Wolff Trio: 2am [Cabana Boy, CD]

This disc transcends its format with glistening highs and unconstrained
dynamics. Driven by an uncannily realistic piano and stomping
acoustic bass, Wolff ’s trio stakes out an appealing medium between
unapproachable avant-garde and sappy “soft” jazz.

Roseanne Cash: 10 Song Demo [Capitol, CD]

Minimal processing + minimal miking = maximum purity, and almost
scary immediacy. Cash’s evocative, country-tinged voice is right there,
unbounded both spectrally and dynamically, while each judiciously-
chosen backing instrument speaks volumes about its unique nature.

Prokofiev: Romeo and Juliet [Mercury, CD]

Can a CD convincingly place you mid-hall before an actual orchestra?
This one does, so dimensional is the stage and so realistic are
instrumental placement and color. The music and performances are
superb, too.
68 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
 The Créme de la Créme in Digital
Andrew Quint
Stravinsky: Firebird Suite [Telarc, SACD]
Shaw’s idiomatic and dramatically potent performances were
captured by Thomas Stockham’s Soundstream tape recorder in
1978. Telarc’s detailed yet atmospheric sonics provided hope in
those dark early digital days. The SACD reissue is even better.
Copland: Symphony No. 3
[Reference Recordings, CD]
HDCD-decoded or not, Keith Johnson’s orchestral recordings
are always viscerally involving with silky strings, burnished
brasses, and earth-shaking bass drum. Oue’s reading of the
Great American Symphony is competitive with the best.
Saint-Saëns: Cello Concerto No. 1
[Channel Classics, SACD]
This is the first disc I play when demonstrating multichannel to
nonbelievers. The sense of sound in the air between the listener
and the performers is truly remarkable.
The Beatles: Love
[Capitol, DVD-Audio]
You can enjoy George and Giles Martin’s ingenious treatment
of several dozen Beatles’ songs as a standard CD but the
listening experience is exponentially heightened in multichannel.
Jonathan Valin
Gruber: Frankenstein!! [Chandos, CD]
Heinz Karl Gruber’s Frankenstein!!—a delightfully macabre series
of “children’s songs” for orchestra and singer-speaker (Gruber
himself on this disc)—is rather like a cross between Roald Dahl
and Brecht/Weill. Wickedly funny and wonderfully recorded.
Josquin Des Prés, et al.: Mille Regretz
[AlliaVox, SACD]
You don’t have to be an antiquarian to appreciate this
bonbonnière of courtly music from the time of Charles V
(roughly 1457–1558). The gorgeous sonics (whether in stereo or
multichannel) will win you over.
Prokofiev: Violin Sonatas
[DG, CD]
Your classic trifecta: terrific performances (from violinist Gidon
Kremer and pianist Martha Argerich), great music, excellent
sound.
Stravinsky: L’Histoire du soldat
[PentaTone Classics, SACD]
Paavo Järvi and the players of the Deutsche Kammer-
philharmonie Bremen are afforded superb sound in this oft-
recorded piece. TAS
The Absolute Sound September 2007 69
 Digital Oppo Digital DV-981HD
Focus
Universal Disc Player
A $229 universal player
that does it all—and
surprisingly well
Chris Martens
W
hen TAS reviewed Oppo Digital’s $149 DV-970HD
universal player (Issue 168), we fell in love with the
modest-looking device because it offered better
video and audio performance than any entry-level player in recent
memory. Not surprisingly, the Oppo went on to receive TAS’
2006 Budget Component of the Year award, plus an Editors’
Choice award from our sister magazine, The Perfect Vision. Given
these accolades, you’d think picking a DV-970HD would be an
automatic choice among budget players,
and it would be, except for the fact that
Oppo’s other budget-priced model—the Unusually clear,
OPDV971H—offers even stronger
video performance. Until now prospec-
transparent
tive buyers have had to decide whether
to buy the DV-970HD for its flexibility
sound, reminis-
and superior sound quality, or to choose
the OPDV971H to put image quality
cent of far more
first. Happily, Oppo has resolved this expensive gear
dilemma by offering its new best-of-
both-worlds universal player called the DV-981HD ($229).
The DV-981HD is based on the OPDV971H platform, but
adds the universal player functions and audio circuitry of the DV-
970HD. The new player provides Faroudja DCDi (Directional
Correlational De-interlacing) video processing functions, which the
970HD did not, plus slightly revised upscaling options with 480p,
720p, 1080i, and 1080p outputs. But perhaps the most significant
change is that the new player delivers HD video signals via HDMI
70 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
outputs only—there are no component-video outputs whatsoever.
This arrangement is fine for customers who own HDMI-equipped
displays, but those who require component-video outputs will find
the original DV-970HD is the better choice.
The DV-981HD produces visibly better onscreen images than
the DV-970HD thanks to Faroudja processing features that help
eliminate jaggies, provide clean transitions between film- and video-
based content, reduce video noise, and enhance image detail. These
benefits are easy to verify by playing test
material such as the Silicon Optix HQV
Benchmark disc, but more importantly
they make a difference you can enjoy
when watching movies everyday.
But TAS readers will want to know
how the DV-981HD sounds, and the
answer is that DV-981HD sounds essen-
tially the same as the DV-970HD, which
makes sense given that, on a schematic
level, the two players’ audio circuits are
identical. Actual circuit board layouts differ between the players,
however, so that there is a very slight difference in their sound.
When I listened carefully through fairly costly components, I
found the DV-970HD sounded just a hair smoother and fuller
than the DV-981HD. But these differences are extremely small—
the sort for which you can easily compensate with cable choices.
In any event, the quality that makes both players so special is
their unusually clear, transparent sound, which reminds me of
 Oppo Digital DV-981HD Universal Disc Player
the performance of players two to four times their price. While
the Oppos might seem ever-so-slightly etched, two-dimensional,
or lean in the bass relative to big-buck players, they can deci-
sively outperform any of the comparably-priced competitors I’ve
heard by wide margins.
This $229 player
captures the dark
power of Krauss’
bass with mind-
blowing perfection
Like the 970HD, the 981HD sounds its very best when fed
high-resolution SACD or DVD-Audio material, but it can also
deliver extremely impressive results with conventional CDs. Try
“Shine On You Crazy Diamond” from Viktor Krauss’ II [EMI],
and prepare to have your mind blown by hearing how perfectly
this $229 player captures the dark power of Krauss’ acoustic bass,
the clean and commanding voice of Dean Parks’ guitar, and the
smooth, luscious, yet slightly breathy sound of Shawn Colvin’s
voice floating high above the instruments. Particularly impressive
was a passage where Krauss played a theme on a Fender Rhodes
electric piano (a somewhat tubular-sounding electronic keyboard),
doubling the piano line on a celeste. The voices of the piano and
celeste are close enough in timbre that most inexpensive players
tend to mush them together, but the DV-981HD made the differ-
ences between those instruments plain as day—just as a higher-end
player would do. The magic of the Oppos is that their refinement
and clarity consistently give the impression that you are listening to
much, much more costly players.
Finally, let me mention that Oppo’s user interface is a model of
clarity and flexibility, in part because it invites users to make on-the-
fly tuning adjustments—something I wish more players allowed.
The DV-981HD combines the flexibility and sonic excellence of
the DV-970HD with the video strengths of the award-winning
OPDV971H, all at a bargain price. No other budget player does
so much for so little. TAS
Digital
Focus
Tom Martin comments on
the DV-981HD
Like certain single-malt Scotches, the Oppo DV-981HD has
a different approach that some will love and some will
hate. The Oppo spices up almost every disc with a sense of
clarity. I was impressed with the way the Oppo does this,
because the sound isn’t annoyingly etched or bright.
The DV-981HD is simply balanced on the light side (a
little bass shy) of neutral, and treble transients have a bit
more impact than is completely natural. The result is that
the Oppo can sound very slightly strained at times. But
when you compare this sound to the flat, opaque sound of
many other players it is a huge step forward.
On SACD, the treble issues are ameliorated quite
nicely. The clarity and lightness are still there, but with
a smoother and more delicate rendition of cymbals or
strings. If you have a system with ample bass warmth and
smooth treble, the Oppo would be a tough player to beat
at less than stratospheric prices.
Specs & Pricing
Oppo Digital DV-981HD universal player
Formats: DVD-Audio/Video, SACD, HDCD, CD, Kodak Picture CD,
DivX, XviD, CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW, DVD+R DL
Audio outputs: One 5.1-channel analog audio, one stereo analog
audio, two digital audio (one optical, one coaxial), one HDMI (1.1)
Video outputs: One each, composite video, S-video, HDMI
Dimensions: 16.5" x 10.6" x 1.6"
Weight: 5.2 lbs
Price: $229
Oppo Digital, Inc.
453 Ravendale Dr., Suite D
Mountain View, CA 94043
(650) 961-1118
oppodigital.com
ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Anthem Statement D2/P5 multichannel controller/amplifier, Von
Schweikert System 12 5.1-channel speaker system, JL Audio Fathom
f112 subwoofer, JVC HD-70FH96 HD-ILA RPTV, Ultralink/XLO
interconnect/speaker cables, RGPC power conditioner
The Absolute Sound September 2007 73
 Digital Yamaha DVD-S1700 Universal Player
Focus
A uni-player that excels
with high-res DVD
Neil Gader
J
ust a few short years ago, the new high-resolution audio
formats DVD-Audio and SACD were vying for hegemony,
and, for budget-conscious audiophiles everywhere, the
single-chassis universal DVD player was the answer. Today, as
we await a new generation of high definition-based audio/video
formats, “uni” players are, as they say, priced to move.
True to its mission, the Yamaha DVD-S1700 universal player
accepts both DVD-Audio and SACD-multichannel, and pretty
much any other disc you toss in its drawer. It’s also an estimable
progressive-scan DVD player, chipped with DCDi technology
courtesy of Faroudja Labs. Remote-controlled and HDMI-
equipped, it even has rudimentary speaker-configuration and
bass-management set-up controls. For the purist, it has an audio-
Specs &
direct function that disables the video outputs
and the front-panel display, often sources of
noise.
Even though the econo-box appearance of
the Yamaha does little for the aesthetic sense,
don’t be fooled. The DVD-S1700 performs at a
Pricing
Dimensions: 17.1 x 11.25" x 3.5"
level that just a few short years ago would have Weight: 7.25lbs
Price: $449
required a $1200-minimum entry-fee. With Red
Book CD and DVD material the DVD-S1700 Yamaha Electronics Corp.
is a performer that surpassed my expectations 6660 Orangethorpe Ave.
on most levels. It conveys midrange tonality Buena Park, CA 90620
yamaha.com
faithfully and has potent rhythmic drive,
with just the right degree of forwardness on
popular vocal music. All told its personality veers ever so slightly
to the cooler range. It also summons a solid sense of ambience
and reverberation from a hall during symphonic works. Its bass
octaves are superior, particularly when the S1700 is called upon
to reproduce rock material where kick drum and electric bass
provide the only real foundation for the tune. Image specificity
and soundstaging are adequate, but lack the dimensional reality
of some pricier components. The only real bone I have to pick
with the Yamaha occurs in the treble. On a recording like k.d.
lang’s “Hallelujah” [Hymns of the 49th Parallel, Nonesuch], a whitish
74 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
cast overlays the vocal, as if a voice mike had been swapped out.
Likewise, the violin and cello duel between Mark O’Connor and
Yo Yo Ma during “1A” [Appalachian Journey, Sony] gets a bit wiry,
and the soundstage is not as roomy or defined as I’ve heard it.
The Yamaha excelled with high-resolution DVD material.
For example, the 24-bit/96kHz DAD of Casino Royale [Classic/
Colgems] exhibited rock-steady image focus and a far more open
soundstage. During “The Look of Love,” the saxophone solo
was warmer, more detailed and airy, and free of the annoying
etch that overlays the treble on conventional CDs. With Dusty
Springfield’s vocal, there was a clearer line drawn between the
finer-grain throatiness of the real thing and the rough-hewn rasp
of lower-resolution sources. Essentially the Yamaha could “see”
deeper into the stage and could plumb the
deepest recesses of the reverb plate that wets
down the vocal.
Unfortunately, the Yamaha was somewhat
disappointing with SACD. Great SACD
reproduction is built on a chain of subtleties—
micro-dynamic information, low-level
transients, the kind of timbral details that
grab you in an almost subliminal embrace.
During Copland’s Appalachian Spring [NY
Philharmonic/Bernstein, Sony], both micro-
and macro-dynamic information were slightly
crimped, and this added a bit of staging
squeeze. The S1700 flattens out low-level transient cues and
micro-dynamic information a bit too much for my taste. It’s one
thing to establish a hip-hop groove and quite another to sort
out the timbral complexities of a section of bass viols—their
individual voices and resonances and the broader layers of hall
reverberation.
It may not be sheer perfection, but at a humble $449 the
Yamaha may be the ideal companion to enjoy a library of aging
DVD-A and SACD titles. If there’s one thing everyone can agree
on, it’s a great deal, and the Yamaha easily fills that bill. TAS
 Digital Cambridge Audio Azur 840C CD Player
Focus
The best CD playback
under $5k for. . .$1499
Robert Harley
TO P
VALUE
T
he new Cambridge Audio 840C CD player left me shaking
my head in wonderment at how Cambridge can sell this
much CD player for $1499. The 840C is packed with
advanced features, sophisticated technologies, and high-quality
parts that one finds in digital products costing upward of $10k.
Here’s a sample of the 840C’s technology: custom transport
mechanism; custom upsampling digital filter running on a 32-bit
DSP chip; differential digital-to-analog converters; digital inputs;
digital upsampled outputs; and balanced
analog outputs. (See Features and Tech-
nology sidebar for details.) Packed with
Such an impressive feature and tech-
nology list, however, tells you nothing
the advanced
about how the player sounds. To know
that, you must listen. Dropping the 840C
features and
into my reference system, I was stunned
by its overall sound quality. I knew im-
quality parts of
mediately that the 840C wasn’t a player a $10k player
to be measured against similarly priced
products, but was worthy of comparison with reference-grade
digital front ends.
For starters, the 840C doesn’t sound anything like a $1500 CD
player. It had a resolution, refinement, ease, grace, and musicality
that were instantly recognizable as being different from every other
product in the category. In fact, it’s hard to know where to begin
praising the 840C. We could start with any part of the sonic fabric,
but I’ll choose the treble reproduction, an area where CD players
76 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
often reveal their shortcomings. The 840C had a delicacy, refine-
ment, and sophistication in the top octaves that must be heard
to be believed. Most digital near this price—indeed, most digital
at any price—tends to make cymbals sound like undifferentiated
bursts of white noise, with no inner character or clue as to the
mechanism by which the sound was created. By contrast, the 840C
had a completely natural top end that was smooth and gentle, yet
bursting with fine inner detail which gave high-frequency-rich in-
struments a remarkable timbral realism.
Listen, for example, to Jack DeJohnette’s
delicate and understated cymbal work
on Michael Brecker’s fabulous new
(and, unfortunately, last) CD Pilgrim-
age. I could hear every nuance of his
exquisite playing, and the cymbals were
infused with a wealth of finely filigreed
detail in their shimmer and decay. Many
$5k players don’t approach the 840C’s
beautiful rendering of the top octaves.
The midrange was equally well served by this combination of
resolution and ease. Instrumental tone colors were vivid and alive,
as though the 840C had access to a wider color gamut than other
CD players. Most CD players anywhere near this price tend to ho-
mogenize timbres by overlaying them with a common synthetic
character; the 840C portrayed timbres with a stunning naturalness.
The natural rendering of tone color, coupled with the overall ease,
made the 840C musically vivid without being sonically vivid.
 Cambridge Audio Azur 840C CD Player
Digital
Focus
This rare combination
of ease and resolu-
tion deepens musical
involvement
The 840 also had a soundstage dimensionality that I haven’t
heard before in a sub-$5k digital front end. The 840’s spatial
presentation reminded me of the first time I heard the Theta
DSPro Generation III, with its spectacular sense of sculpted in-
strumental outlines “hanging” in the soundstage and separated
by near-tangible air. The 840C presented tightly focused images,
with sharp outlines that were surrounded by a sense of palpable
bloom. The result of the 840C’s ability to present instruments
as distinct objects in three-dimensional space was a heightened
ability to hear what each musician was playing. The subjec-
tive consequences of this objective change in the presentation
cannot be overstated; rather than hearing a somewhat congealed
and synthetic mass of sound, the 840C brought the music to life
by conveying a convincing impression of individual musicians
before me. In addition, the 840C resolved reverberation tails
down to a very low level, which further added to the illusion of
hearing instruments in a large acoustic space.
Music through the 840C had an organic “rightness” and
fundamental musicality that’s hard to describe. I heard a sonic
coherence that translated to an enhanced ability to hear into the
Specs & Pricing
Analog outputs: Balanced on XLR jacks, unbalanced on RCA jacks
Digital outputs: Coaxial on RCA, optical on TosLink
Digital inputs: Coaxial on RCA, optical on TosLink (two each)
Digital input word lengths supported: 16–24 bits
Digital input sampling frequencies supported: 32kHz, 44.1kHz,
48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz, 176.4kHz, 192kHz
Digital output sampling frequencies supported: 32kHz–192kHz (pass-
through); 48kHz, 96kHz, 192kHz upsampled
Analog output upsampling: 384kHz/24-bit
Digital-to-analog converters: Dual Analog Devices AD1955 24-bit
Digital filter: Analog Devices Blackfin DASP-BF532 32-bit DSP,
running ATF software, upsampling to 384kHz/24-bit
Dimensions: 16.9" x 4.5" x 14.7"
Weight: 18.7 lbs.
Price: $1499
Audio Plus Services
156 Lawrence Paquette Industrial Drive
Champlain, NY 12919
(800) 663-9352
audioplusservices.com
Associated Equipment
Wilson MAXX 2 loudspeakers; Mark Levinson No.326S preamp;
Mark Levinson No.433 power amplifier; MIT Oracle MA
loudspeaker cables, MIT Magnum MA interconnects; Shunyata
Hydra-8 power conditioner and Shunyata Anaconda power cords;
custom-built room treated by Acoustic Room Systems
78 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Features & Technology
The 840C offers a host of inputs and outputs beyond those
traditionally found on CD players. These connectivity options
take advantage of the 840C’s custom digital filter, and
include two digital inputs for decoding external sources
(each input offers coax or TosLink jacks) and digital outputs
with selectable sampling frequency, word length, and dither
on/off. These features allow you to use the 840C as a DAC, or
to upsample digital signals (either from the internal CD drive
or for processing external digital sources) for output to an
outboard DAC. (See Specs & Pricing for a full list of supported
sampling rates and word lengths.) You can even name the
two digital inputs, with the name appearing on the 840C’s
front-panel display when that input is selected.
The custom filter is built on an Analog Devices “Blackfin”
32-bit DSP chip running upsampling software provided by a
company called Anagram Technologies. Cambridge calls the
filter algorithm Adaptive Time Filtering (ATF), presumably
because the filter is optimized for time-domain response
(conventional digital filters are optimized for frequency-
domain response). The filter upsamples the 44.1kHz/16-bit
audio from the CD (or external source) to 384kHz/24-bit.
Dual Analog Devices 24-bit DACs convert the digital
data to analog signals differentially. That is, the left and
right channels are each split in the digital domain to create
balanced signals, and converted to analog with two DACs
per channel (one for each phase of the balanced signal).
This technique reduces DAC-induced distortion (artifacts
common to both halves of the balanced signal cancel due
to common-mode rejection) and lowers the noise floor. It
requires, however, double the number of DACs and analog
output stages compared with conventional conversion.
Another benefit of differential DACs is that a balanced signal
is created without the penalty of a phase splitter in the
analog domain. This is the right way to create a balanced
output signal from a digital source, and one that is rarely
used because of the additional expense.
The 840C gives you the option of adding dither, a small
amount of noise that increases resolution at the expense of a
slightly higher noise floor. A selection in the menu allows you
to turn the dither on and off.
To top it off, the 840C employs a custom transport
mechanism that’s considerably beefier than standard-issue
transports. The transport servos are all custom and enclosed
in a shielded metal sub-compartment. A custom clock drives
the DACs, and reportedly has less than 130 picoseconds of
correlated jitter.
Finally, the power supply is massive, with a huge toroidal
transformer, lots of filter caps, and rows of power-supply
voltage regulators. I counted a whopping nineteen TO-
3 regulators, about triple the number usually found in
CD players of this price. Independent regulators for each
subsystem increase the isolation between circuits, which
often translates to better sound. RH
 Cambridge Audio Azur 840C CD Player
music and understand it more deeply. This was partly the result
of the 840C’s remarkable ability to keep individual instrumen-
tal lines distinct, and partly because of the player’s tremendous
sense of ease, smoothness, and liquidity. This player is amazingly
free from midrange glare (often manifested on the leading edges
of piano notes) and metallic hardness in the treble. Despite the
Digital
Focus
840C’s utter grace and ease, the player is tremendously good at
resolving fine detail. This rare combination of ease and resolu-
tion is an important factor in musical involvement and long-term
listening satisfaction.
The 840C was good dynamically, but not out-of-the-ballpark
great as it is in every other sonic criteria. Microdynamics were
rendered with good resolution, but the 840C isn’t the last word in
slam, impact, and “jump factor.” Through the balanced outputs,
however, the sound is considerably punchier and more dynamic,
with tauter and more muscular bass. If you have balanced inputs
on your preamp, you should use them; the 840C sounds better in
every respect through its balanced jacks.
Conclusion
The Cambridge 840C CD player delivers the best CD playback
I’ve heard from any player under $5k—and it costs $1499. Not
only is the 840C easily the greatest value in digital sources in my
experience, it must be considered one of the greatest bargains
in all of high-end audio. Even if your budget for a CD player is
considerably more than $1499, I encourage you to audition the
Cambridge 840C. In fact, I could easily live with the 840C at the
front end of my $100k reference system—it’s that good. TAS
The Absolute Sound September 2007 79
 Digital NAD Masters Series M55 universal player
Focus
A big league (uni-) player
from budget-minded
NAD
Chris Martens
N
AD enjoys a solid reputation as a manufacturer of
affordable, music-oriented A/V components, but the
firm’s upscale Masters Series components have higher-
end aspirations. Think of the Masters Series components as
designs that push the sonic envelope harder than NAD products
ever have and set high standards for elegant design and build-
quality, yet are still sensibly (though not
inexpensively) priced. Since this issue
of TAS focuses on digital audio, we NAD’s Masters
decided to sample the Masters Series M55
universal player ($1795)—by far the most
Series sets
ambitious, versatile, and, yes, expensive
digital player NAD has ever produced.
higher
Two questions immediately come to mind.
First, how well does the M55 perform as
standards for
a video and audio player? Second, does it design
offer good value for money? Let’s tackle
those questions in order.
The M55 is a high performance video player that features
Faroudja DCDi (Directional Correlational De-interlacing) video
processing and can output 480i, 480p, 720p, or 1080i video
signals via HDMI. In my tests the player sailed cleanly through
even the roughest sections of the HQV Benchmark DVD, which
can push some DVD players to their limits—and beyond. More
importantly, movies simply look great through the M55. Video
80 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
aficionados might debate whether higher-end DVD players
from manufacturers such as Denon, Krell, Linn, Meridian, and
Parasound offer better image quality than the M55, but by any
rational standard the player offers top-tier video performance
and for much less money than competing flagship models from
those manufacturers.
But while the NAD’s strong video
performance is entirely to the good, the
thing audiophiles will care about most
is this player’s sound quality, and let me
say right upfront that the M55 does
not disappoint. Many NAD players I’ve
heard in the past have exhibited a house
sound I would describe as warm, organic,
and smooth—almost to a self-effacing
extent. The M55 also exhibits some of
those qualities, but it breaks new ground
by offering dramatically higher levels of resolution, transient
speed, definition, and three-dimensionality than NAD players
have in the past. “Elements of NAD’s traditional organic sound
are still present in the M55,” I jotted in my listening notebook,
“but taken to much higher levels.” In practice, this means several
things.
First, unlike universal players that handle some but not all
audio formats well, the M55 is a consistent, balanced performer
 NAD Masters Series M55 universal player
Digital
Focus
whether you choose CDs, SACDs, or DVD-Audio discs. In short,
the M55 not only shows off the sonic benefits of high-resolution
formats, but is also a very strong CD player. Part of the point of
owning a universal player is to be able to throw on any kind of
musical material you want without having to worry whether the
disc format is one your player handles well. With the M55, those
worries simply never arise.
Second, the M55 offers an absolutely uncanny balance of
low-level detail and resolution on the one hand, and smoothness
and freedom from edge and glare on the other—a combination
of virtues I found incredibly beguiling. I put on “Bye Bye
Blackbird” from Patricia Barber’s Nightclub [MFSL, SACD] and
noted that the M55 captured even the smallest inflection in
Barber’s voice with terrific delicacy and gobs of high-frequency
“air,” yet without any false highlighting or excess brightness. The
same levels of pain-free detail and resolution carried on down
through the midrange on Barber’s piano, and down into the bass
region on Marc Johnson’s acoustic bass. In fact, the M55 did a
remarkable job of capturing the taut, soulful, elastic voice of the
bass, creating a sound so evocative that I could almost feel the
tension on those bass strings in a tactile way.
Later, looking to give the M55 a perhaps more demanding test,
Tom Martin comments
on the M55
I found this player immensely easy to like. Holistic
comments best convey the essence of the M55: It has a
rich, solidly grounded sound that worked well disc after
disc. While I would say that the sound is warm, it isn’t
rolled off or muted. In fact, the M55’s treble is quite clear
if not the last word in delicacy. This kind of balanced
performance really lets the music shine through.
While I have said that many players’ strengths
and weaknesses on CD tend to be true of their SACD
performance, usually I have found the SACD performance
to be a trifle less special. In the case of the M55, the SACD
performance mirrors the warmth and transparency of
CD playback, while simply adding SACD’s generally more
refined treble. This is an achievement, because many
SACDs are anything but warm sounding.
82 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Specs & Pricing
NAD M55 universal player
Formats: DVD-Audio/Video, SACD, HDCD, CD, Kodak Picture CD,
DivX, CD-R/RW, DVD±R/RW, DVD+R DL
Audio outputs: One 5.1-channel analog audio, one stereo analog
audio, two digital audio (one optical, one coaxial)
Video outputs: One each, composite video, S-video, component
video, HDMI, VGA
Other inputs/outputs: IR remote input, RS 232 interface
Dimensions: 17.1" x 3.9" x 11.8"
Weight: 18.7 lbs.
Price: $1795
NAD Electronics International
Lenbrook Industries Limited
633 Granite Court
Pickering, Ontario, Canada L1W 3K1
www.nadelectronics.com
ASSOCIATED EQUIPMENT
Oppo DV-981HD universal player, Anthem Statement D2/P5
multichannel controller/amplifier, Von Schweikert System 12 5.1-
channel speaker system, JL Audio Fathom f112 subwoofer, JVC HD-
70FH96 HD-ILA RPTV, Ultralink/XLO interconnect/speaker cables,
RGPC power conditioner.
I played “Speak” from Nickelcreek’s This Side [Sugarhill, SACD],
where Sara Watkins’ vocals can be very difficult to get right, as
can the sound of Chris Thile’s mandolin. “Speak” tends to be a
sonic litmus test of sort, because many players introduce a layer
of upper-midrange glare on Watkins’ voice, and a hard-edged,
“pingy” sound on Thile’s mandolin. But to my surprise, the M55
did a better job with Watkins’ high pure voice than any other
multichannel player I’ve heard, virtually eliminating all traces of
edginess. Similarly, the NAD revealed the light, lithe, dancing
sound of Thile’s mandolin, showing its underlying sweetness.
On record after record the M55 offered sonic gain without pain,
providing plenty of resolution and detail while putting the kibosh
on edgy-sounding artifacts and overwrought transients.
Does the M55 offer the same levels of purity, clarity, or
absolute detail as über-players such as my $7000 reference
Musical Fidelity kW SACD? No, but you wouldn’t expect it to,
given its price. Nevertheless, the M55 provides CD sound quality
tantalizingly close to that of audio-only CD players that cost as
much or more than the NAD. It’s important to bear in mind that
the M55 is a multichannel, do-all player, whose secret weapon
is well-balanced performance across all formats. If you compare
the M55’s CD performance against like-priced, audio-only CD
players, the contest will be close, but with the CD player perhaps
enjoying a slight edge over the NAD. But when you play SACDs
or DVD-Audio discs on the NAD, it suddenly pulls ahead by a
decisive margin.
NAD’s M55 is a well-made, well-balanced universal player that
merges high-level resolution and detail with a quality of unfailing
musicality. Though not inexpensive, this player marks what will
be, for many listeners, a point of diminishing returns, and in my
book that makes the M55 a bargain. TAS
 Digital
Focus

A Focused on
rcam was one of the first high-
end companies to build disc
players compatible with a wide
range of formats. Although the mass-

sound quality
market electronics companies also jumped
on the universal-player bandwagon,
Arcam approached the category with
the prerequisite that two-channel music
performance is of paramount importance.
As a result, the company has carved out
a niche making high-quality disc players Arcam DV137 and DV139
that deliver great sound and that are
compatible with multiple disc formats. Universal Disc Players
The latest product in Arcam’s long
history of building universal disc players
is the DV139. The machine not only Robert Harley
incorporates Arcam’s most current
thinking and audio technologies, but sports
a new and highly advanced video chipset
that delivers stunning video quality.
The $3199 DV139 plays virtually any
disc, including CD, stereo or multichannel
SACD and DVD-Audio, and DVD-Video
(see Specs & Pricing below for a full list
of compatible formats). The DV137,
priced at $2199, offers the same audio
circuitry and a nearly identical feature set,
the only difference being that the DV139
upscales video to 1080p and the DV137
to 1080i. (See sidebar on the DV137 for
details.) Both machines offer the same
functionality and connectivity.

84
84 September 2007 The
September 2007 The Absolute
Absolute Sound
Sound
 The DV139 is packed with clever techniques for maximizing
sound quality—techniques you won’t find in mass-market
machines. For example, the switching power supply’s switching
frequency is related to the sampling rate, so that the analog output
filter attenuates any remaining switching noise, as well. Two
completely separate power supplies are employed, each powered
by a dedicated transformer. The switching supply powers the
logic control, video boards, and digital circuits, and a linear supply
feeds the analog stages. Digital-to-analog conversion is handled
by a pair of Wolfson 8740 DACs, and the analog output stage
uses high-end Wima capacitors.
Arcam is fanatical about reducing radiated noise in its products.
When the DV139 recognizes a CD, it automatically shuts off
the video circuits and all unnecessary clocks so that they won’t
contaminate the audio sections. The video circuits turn back on
when the CD stops. Arcam also shields surrounding circuitry from
noisy chips using the company’s “Mask of Silence” technology, a
material applied around selected integrated circuits, including the
high-density video-scaler chip.
Speaking of the video, the DV139 includes the latest highly
sophisticated video scaler and deinterlacing chips from Anchor
Bay Technologies. The ABT 1010 scaler converts 480i video to
1080p with spectacular results. (This is the same device used
in Esoteric’s $17,300 P-03 Universal Disc Transport.). Without
dwelling on the video performance, you should know that the
DV139’s video quality is, along with the Esoteric, the best I’ve
seen from standard-definition video (I have a 1920x1080 video
projector and 92"-wide screen). The DV137’s video circuitry is
less sophisticated, but it still outputs a picture better than most
would expect from a standard-definition source.
The DV139 features Arcam’s Full Metal Jacket chassis
construction. The top plate and front panel are made from
aluminum rather than steel, which Arcam says results in a
perceptible improvement in sound quality. The chassis is
constructed of a sandwich of metal and a rubber-like material
that damps vibration. The $1000-less-expensive DV137 eschews
DV137: Features,
Technology, and
Sound Quality
The DV137 shares much of the design and technology
of the DV139, but with a less elaborate implementation.
The two players have identical feature sets, transport
mechanisms, audio and power-supply boards, and remote
controls. The differences are in their power supplies and
chassis. The DV139 employs dual toroidal transformers
(one for the analog circuits, one for everything else); the
137 uses a single transformer. In addition, the 139’s audio
board is populated by power-supply filtering and regulation
components not found in the 137.
The big difference between the players is the chassis;
the DV139 benefits from Arcam’s Full Metal Jacket (FMJ)
technology, described above. The DV137 employs more
conventional construction, with a steel (rather than
aluminum) top plate and a thinner front panel.
If you plan to use one of the Arcam players for DVD-
Video, the DV139 is by far the better choice. The two
machines use completely different video boards and
decoding/deinterlacing/scaling chipsets. The DV137’s video
scaling is very good; the DV139’s is spectacularly great.
The DV137 sounds very similar to the DV139 in tonal
balance, soundstaging, and dynamics. The main differences
are ones of degree rather than kind. The DV139 has a
little smoother rendering of midrange and treble timbre,
a bit more resolution, greater soundstage layering and
depth, and a slightly more refined sound overall. The
139 also has a slightly more relaxed sound, probably the
result of cleaner reproduction of treble transients. If video
quality is important to you (and you have a 1080p display),
the DV139 is clearly worth the price difference. If you’re
buying the Arcam for its sound quality, give a listen to both
players before deciding whether the DV139’s greater sonic
refinement is worth $1000 more. RH
The
The Absolute
Absolute Sound
Sound September 2007 85
September 2007 85
 Arcam DV137 and DV139 Universal Disc Players
Digital
Focus
the Full Metal Jacket treatment to keep
costs down.
I’ve used the DV139 for the past
three months for all of my multichannel
SACD and DVD-A listening, as well as
much of my two-channel CD and SACD
playback. With CDs, the player has a
very transparent, open, and lively quality,
with good resolution and a sense of top-
octave air and extension. The treble has
a full measure of detail and life without
sounding etched or analytical. The result
is an overall sound with good clarity,
low coloration, and an impression of
the soundstage being illuminated from
within.
One area in which the DV139 excels
is presenting the music against a jet-black
background rather than against a grayish
haze. This quality allows low-level details
to be resolved, particularly reverb decay,
which enhances the sense of space and
depth. Although apparent on all sources,
the DV139’s dead-quiet background is a
huge benefit when playing high-resolution
discs, with their wider dynamic range
and extremely low noise floors. Listen,
for example, to the delicate brush work
during the piano solo on the beautiful
piece “Naima,” from trumpeter Jon
Faddis’ disc Remembrances, in 96kHz/24-
bit [Chesky]. Every detail and nuance
is gently resolved against a pitch-black
background.
The DV139 is also a very dynamic,
energetic, and upbeat player on CD and
DVD-A, in particular. For a sonic and
musical thrill ride that shows the Arcam’s
transparency, dynamics, purity of timbre,
and powerful rhythmic qualities, listen
to “A Game of Inches” from the DVD-
A of Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat
Band release XXL. This disc features
imaginative arrangements performed by a
monster big-band, and the DV139 brings
the music to life with a visceral intensity.
As an SACD player, the DV139 has a
bit of a different character. The sound is
overall a little softer (particularly in the
treble), less dynamic, with a somewhat
diminished sense of life and drive
compared to its DVD-A performance.
Many universal players have very
different performances depending on the
disc format; the player can sound great
on CD, for example, and disappointing
on high-res discs. The two Arcam players
don’t fall into this trap; their performance
is well balanced across all formats despite
the slightly more gentle sound from
SACD.
Finally, I should mention that I’ve
greatly enjoyed having a single player
in my rack that can handle CD, stereo
and multichannel SACD, stereo and
multichannel DVD-A, and DVD-Video.
Conclusion
Arcam’s DV139 and DV137 offer the
audiophile attractive solutions to the
problem of multiple disc formats. These
two players deliver outstanding sound
quality on CD, SACD, and DVD-A, and
offer multichannel capability, to boot.
Although there are many mass-market
universal players to choose from, none
that I know is as focused on sound
quality as these Arcam units. The DV139
and DV137 render moot the question
of disc formats, and don’t compromise
sonic performance to bring you universal
compatibility. TAS
Specs &
Pricing
DV137 and DV139 Universal disc
players
Formats supported: CD, SACD, DVD-A,
DVD-V, DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, DVD-
RW, MPEG-2-encoded video, MPEG-4-
encoded (DivX) video files, CD-audio
including HDCD, WMA, MP2, MP3 or OGG
encoding, JPEG images files on CD or DVD
Audio outputs: Separate stereo and
multichannel on RCA jacks; digital output
on RCA coaxial and TosLink optical
Video outputs: Composite, component,
and S-video; HDMI, SCART socket
Dimensions: 17.2" x 13.8" x 3.15"
(DV137); 17.2" x 3.45" x 14" (DV139)
Weight: 11.2 lbs (net, DV137 and DV139)
Price: $2199 (DV137), $3199 (DV139)
AUDIOPHILE SYSTEMS LTD.
8709 Castle Park Drive
Indianapolis, IN 46256
(317) 849-7103
audiophilesystems.com
The Absolute Sound September 2007 87
 Digital Marantz SA-7S1 CD/SACD Player
Focus
A unique opportunity to
alter high-quality playback
for the better
Robert E. Greene
T
he Marantz SA-7S1 is a truly unusual piece of equipment.
There are many CD players of elegant construction and
high sonic merit and even quite a few SACD players
answering the same description. But beyond these virtues, the
Marantz offers a unique opportunity to alter the way in which its
high-quality playback is executed. In fact, this is so unusual that it
is going to take a bit of explaining even to make clear what it is!
In brief, the Marantz lets the user select several different digital-
filter options for CD playback and several forms of filtering for
noise suppression (or not) in SACD. Digital is sometimes regarded
as a sort of absolute thing, wherein the output is supposed to be
totally determined by the input bits. In fact, there are options that
all fall in the category of being arguably correct, but which sound
subtly but observably different from each other.
To anticipate the sonic conclusions before getting into any
technical details, let me say right away that Filter 2 for CD
playback sounded amazingly good to me at first, but Filter 3
came on strong later. Forget theory for a moment; when I heard
my first CD on Filter 2—Freddie Kemp’s Rachmaninoff solo
piano from BIS, as it happened—my immediate reaction and
88 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
remark was: “What gorgeous sound!” I have heard this CD many
times, but I have never heard it sound more beautifully realistic
and less digital in any negative sense than here. This is not to say
it did not sound good on other filter settings on the Marantz. It
did. But Filter 2 seemed magical for this material. However, on
other things, especially complex material like orchestras, Filter 3
could come to the fore, revealing the proverbial inner detail most
convincingly.
Looking in the owner’s manual revealed that Filter 2 is supposed
to have “analog characteristics of slow roll-off ” with “well-
balanced reproduction.” Filter 3 was supposed to make impulses
as precise as possible. Fair enough as sonic descriptions, actually.
But what these are literally is a little trickier to talk about.
I shall get back to that in a minute, but first let me say that,
as befits a unit in this price range, the Marantz is elegant in
appearance and infallible in operation. It plays without demur
even the iffiest CD-Rs, as well as CDs in less than the best
condition. And the unit is very handsome in a visually discrete,
albeit substantial fashion. (It weighs nearly 50 pounds!)
But it is the sound that fascinates. I suppose we have all become
 Marantz SA-7S1 CD/SACD Player
Digital
Focus
accustomed by now to digital-to-analog conversion that is free
of overt digital artifacts. Even relatively inexpensive converters
like my reference Benchmark DAC-1 can be all but perfect in
this regard. But even within this overall context of satisfaction,
the Marantz in its Filter 2 setting comes across as sounding like
analog in a superbly positive sense, to my ears at least, and Filter
3 has as high perceived resolution as I have encountered.
Now, let me make a try at explaining filter options in general
without using too much mathematics.
The goal of a recording/playback system is this: An impulse
“in” should yield the identical impulse “out.” If the system has
low levels of nonlinearity—THD, IM, TIM, and so on—then
this is all there is to it. If an impulse in gives the same impulse
out, such a linear system is simply perfect.
Now this never happens for a simple reason: An impulse is an
infinite-bandwidth signal. It has energy at all frequencies. But all
recording/playback systems have a finite bandwidth, some kind
of upper-frequency limit.
So what does an impulse look like after one simply removes
the energy above a given frequency, while doing nothing to the
frequencies—no alterations in phase or amplitude—below the
cutoff ?
The answer to this is far from obvious, but mathematicians
know how to figure it out. What it looks like is a kind of slightly
rounded spike with some ripples before and some ripples after.
Note that, by definition, this is all within the range below the cut-
off.
Of course, the difference between the original impulse and the
frequency-truncated impulse is all above the cut-off limit. So the
difference ought to be inaudible. However, the ear/brain is not a
pure Fourier analyzer. It also has an overt time component. When
things happen matters. So it is not entirely implausible that the
“pre-echo,” the ripples that occur before the main spike, can be
heard, in a sense, separately.
Now with over-sampling and digital filters, the filtering can
move the timing (phase) of the ripples around. The truncated
impulse cannot be the original impulse—that is impossible since
a pure impulse has to have infinite bandwidth. But one can move
the time position of the ripples.
90 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Neil Gader comments
It’s difficult to overstate the build-quality and sonic
performance of the SA-7S1. Or its mass! It stands alone in
my experience as the only CD player I’ve ever considered
enlisting help to carry into the listening room. Like REG I
haven’t spent any appreciable time with the biggest guns
of PCM/SACD playback. But even admitting that, I can’t
imagine they’d put the Marantz to shame. What I hear is a
greater sense of dynamic contrast, with timbre and textural
detailing that reveals heretofore hidden musicality on the
most familiar discs. Even on prosaic pop releases, it resolves
specifics where you only previously perceived the generic.
Like a particularly loose kick drum sound, a string buzz off
the fretboard, or a millisecond more reverberant delay on a
vocal. And it doesn’t have a clinical bone in its fully armored
body, nor does it leave any incriminating digital fingerprints.
Finally, if more people could have heard SACD aboard this
ride, the high-res format might have actually taken off.
In Filter 2, according to Marantz’s own description, the “pre-
echo” (ripples before) is reduced and the “post-echo” (ripples
afterward) is extended.
Why is this analog-like? Because analog filters, and indeed
analog devices like speakers, almost always ring a bit afterwards but
have no pre-echo! Music, for example, always has a “tail.” It starts
cleanly, with no pre-echo. But it always rings a bit afterward.
In short, reducing the pre-echo, even at the price of increasing
the post-echo, is in a way more like music. This is not euphonic
coloration; it is one approach to the psychoacoustics of the
situation.
Does this really matter? With the Marantz you can try it for
yourself. This won’t be exactly science. After all, you do not
know what the recordings ought to sound like exactly, nor,
indeed, exactly how the filters are executed (e.g., if the frequency
response really is exactly the same). But in musical terms, the
filters sounded different.
Something similar happens with the Marantz SACD playback,
too. All three options there sounded very good to me, with the

Water Lily Mahler 5 that I worked on being
very reminiscent of the sound I heard at the
mastering. One really feels close here to the
mastertape, and hence to the live mike feed
(it is quite hard to tell live feed from DSD
replication). But the different options affected
the sound in its microstructure. One of these
involved no filtering of the DSD stream at all:
Whatever there was above 100kHz was just
let straight through. In the other two options,
filtering was applied, but at different places
along the digital chain. To my ears, Filter 3
emerged on top for perceived resolution. But
again preferences might vary with material.
The Marantz is an exceptionally fine-
sounding source component. I found its
sound difficult to fault, and indeed it rather
aggressively reminded me that the much-higher-
priced players that are available might find it difficult to justify
their prices in listening terms alone. (I have not tried anything
like all the ultra-priced player/converter combos, but I have tried
some.)
Marantz SA-7S1 CD/SACD Player
Digital
Focus
Specs & The Marantz opened an intriguing
possibility. Consider that its sound, while
Pricing
Type: CD/SACD player
never less than excellent, changed with filter
choice by at least as much as the sonic change
one tends to get from switching to a different
Analog outputs: Balanced on XLR converter; could it be, then, that the filter
jacks, unbalanced on RCA jacks choice is really the, or at least a, main factor
Digital outputs: Coaxial and TosLink
optical
in the sound of expensive players? This is
Dimensions: 18 1/4" x 5 7/16" x 16 intriguing, because filter choice is apparently
13/16" not a hugely expensive matter. After all, the
Weight: 49.1 lbs Marantz has three for CD and three for
Price: $6999
SACD at its moderate price—moderate in this
Marantz America, Inc. context, at least.
1100 Maplewood Drive In sum, the Marantz is a superbly built and
Itasca, IL 60143
superb-sounding unit. If I didn’t have frequent
(201) 762-6500
marantz.com need for separate boxes, in order to apply DSP
room correction (the Marantz does not allow
the insertion of such a device, being a true one-
box player), I could settle down with the Marantz indefinitely
and feel no regrets at passing by other units costing as much as
cars or, in some cases, houses in smaller towns. It is, in short, a
bargain for what it offers. TAS
The Absolute Sound September 2007 91

Good sound for
the budget-minded
Audio by Van Alstine Transcendence Eight Preamplifier
I
like this product’s name, and not just
because of its promise of reaching
beyond the common range of
perception. It’s the version number—the
Eight—that really piqued my interest,
suggesting a mature product evolved
through multiple design iterations. Selling
direct, as AVA does, helps to keep prices
down, but to extract good sound on a
budget it is essential for the designer to
put his ears into the design loop, critically
evaluating component and circuit
options, as there is only so much money
you can throw at a given project. And this
is something Frank Van Alstine has done
for over 35 years, judging by the success
of his numerous modifications of vintage
gear. Extracting maximum bang for the
buck is apparently a way of life at AVA.
Frank tells me that his goal is to “build
as high a quality and durable a piece as
possible, while trying to keep prices in the
range affordable by mortals.” Somehow
he still manages to include gold-plated
switch-contacts and jacks, precision
controls, and power-supply regulation.
Functionally, the Transcendence Eight
(T8) is a mixture of old-fashioned and
standard features and is intended to
serve as a full-function preamplifier,
Dick Olsher
rather than as a bare-bones linestage. In
addition to the obligatory volume pot and
input-selector switch, there’s a balance
control, mono-mode selector (useful for
playback of single-channel sources and
noisy FM stations), two tape loops, and
a headphone jack. Three AC convenience
outlets are located on the rear panel. The
headphone driver is built around a fast
integrated chip configured as a unity-gain
Extracting maximum
bang for the buck is
a way of life at AVA
buffer, offering low output impedance
and high current drive. While I made no
attempt to evaluate the headphone driver
in depth, a quick listen via my Grado RS-1
cans indicated more than sufficient drive,
but a sonic flavor more akin to solid-
state than tubes. An optional phonostage
is available, as is a motor-driven remote
volume control. And that’s how my
review sample was outfitted, bringing the
price tag to $1697.
Van Alstine was forthcoming in
providing me with a schematic of the
Equipment
Report
T8. He warned me that there wasn’t that
much amazing to look at and that the
magic is “pretty much just good execution
and careful calculation of circuit time
constants to insure outstanding stability
and bandwidth.” The truth is that there’s
nothing revolutionary left to do in tube
audio. It was already a mature technology
in the 1960s, and much of what passes
for new today is nothing more than a
rehashing of vintage technology. (In fact,
did anyone notice that the vacuum tube
celebrated its 100th anniversary last year?)
The line-level input stage is built
around a “plain vanilla” grounded cathode
circuit. A single Russian 6N1P dual-
triode is used per channel. This medium-
transconductance, low-distortion tube
is, with the exception of higher heater-
current consumption, a direct replacement
for 6DJ8/6922 types. The triode sections
are cascaded to give plenty of voltage
gain—more, in fact than I could ever
imagine being necessary for CD line-
level inputs. There is no cathode-follower
stage, which means that the line output
impedance is fairly high—a bad thing
when driving low-input-impedance power
amps. The RIAA phonostage topology is
similar and is based on a single 12AX7
The Absolute Sound September 2007 95

dual-triode per channel. The power
supply is solid-state and fully regulated.
No global feedback is used. One of AVA’s
“secrets” is the use of separate high-
voltage regulators for each triode section;
for the two 6N1P tubes in the linestage
and two 12AX7 in the phonostage that’s
a total of eight regulators in all! And these
are zener-controlled, high-voltage power
MOSFETs. A replacement tube set of
selected and matched phono and line
tubes is offered at reasonable cost ($29).
It is rare for a sub-$2k preamplifier
(the T8 base price is $1099) to compete
in one or more performance aspects with
the best money can buy. But with digital
source material, the line section amazed
me in several important aspects.
First and foremost, the music’s tension
was reproduced fully intact. That is to
say that the T8 was never a dull, boring
little fellow. Polite, sterile sound is what
I find most off-putting about most solid-
state linestages (though there are happy
exceptions), and the T8 offered a potent
antidote. The music’s grandeur and drama
were fully drawn out. Its ability to engage
the highest gear, to rev up explosively
from soft to loud, was impressive. Familiar
vocals were given free reign, from a soft
whisper to full shout. The T8 didn’t
seem to know about compression. The
impression of speed was enhanced by
excellent transient attack, and controlled
decay enabled the silence between notes
to be clearly perceived.
Image outlines were tightly focused
within a deep soundstage and fleshed
out with palpable presence. This level
of performance, long an area of tube
supremacy, was of course dependent on
the associated amplifier. To its credit, the
T8 was good enough to keep up with
the imaging prowess of the single-ended
deHavilland GM70 tube amp.
Tonal character was also unchanged
with a variety of program material,
being consistently close to neutral in
presentation. The bass range was neither
ripe nor lean. The upper octaves were
well extended and lacking the brightness
that some mistake for genuine detail
and presence. This was a good thing
in my book, as there are already plenty
of bright-sounding speakers out there.
However, and this is the proverbial fly in
the ointment, the treble lacked a measure
of delicacy. It’s fair to say that the T8 did
not sound like a vintage tube preamp, but
more like a hybrid. It lacked the harmonic
warmth and liquidity that characterize
romantic tube sound. Midrange textures
were slightly grainy in nature. OK, nothing
gross, but discernible, nonetheless. If
velvet were assigned a perfect 10 and
sandpaper a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, then
the T8 linestage would earn a respectable
7. Tone colors were a bit bleached out
relative to the real thing. It is important
to point out that when matched to a
romantic-sounding power amplifier, the
T8’s linestage shortcomings were easy to
overlook.
I was less enthusiastic about the RIAA
phonostage. Out of the box it didn’t
prove to be the quietest gain stage on
the planet. The overall noise floor was
considerably elevated—a bothersome
issue with high-sensitivity speakers. Now
comes the spooky part. As if he had read
my mind, Frank Van Alstine e-mails me
to say that the grounding scheme of the
T8 has been improved by simply moving
the main grounding wire closer to the first
main power-supply capacitor, cutting the
linestage background noise in half (from
4–5mV to 2mV broadband). Back went
my sample to the factory. It returned with
a note stating that the linestage noise level
was now around 1mV broadband. That
certainly did take care of the noise issue.
There was more than enough gain
to be had—at least for the moving-
magnet cartridges this stage is designed
for. Running my Grado Reference mm
cartridge directly in, at a VTF of 1.7
gram, allowed the T8’s strong virtues
to shine through. Its unmistakable
cornerstone of quick attack, dynamics,
and spatiality was very much in evidence.
But it seemed that its relative flaws in the
treble and midrange were exaggerated.
Not only were textures grainier to the
ear, but brass assumed a slightly more
brittle character. As a sanity check, and
to put matters into perspective, I decided
to pit the T8 phonostage directly against
the Air Tight ATE-2, the latter being a
much more expensive tube-rectified
design known for its distinctly vintage
Audio by Van Alstine
Transcendence Eight Preamplifier
sound. It was thus possible to bypass the
T8’s built-in phonostage. I like the ATE-
2 very much, and when servicing the
Grado Reference its exemplary liquidity
and textural smoothness provided a
perfect backdrop for judging the T8’s
performance. While the ATE-2 rewarded
me with silky smooth highs, the T8’s
phonostage shortcomings were brought
into focus. The final diagnosis: a touch of
overly sibilant and brittle upper registers.
When configured as a linestage, I can
confidently recommend the T8, not only
as offering a terrific value but also as a
product that genuinely transcends the
constraints of budget amplification. The
key, and this is true of audio gear at any
price point, is careful matching. Be sure
to mate it with a romantic tube amp, and
simply kick back, relax, and enjoy the
music. TAS
Specs &
Pricing
Inputs/outputs: Five line inputs, two tape
inputs; two tape outputs, two main outputs
(all RCA jacks)
Dimensions: 17" x 12" x 3.5"
Weight: 17 lbs.
Price: $1099
Options: phonostage, $299; remote control,
$299; buffered tape output, $149
Audio by Van Alstine, Inc.
2665 Brittany Lane
Woodbury, MN 55125
(651) 330-9871
avahifi.com
Associated Equipment
Kuzma Reference turntable; Graham
Engineering 2.2 tonearm; Grado Reference
phono cartridge; Air Tight ATE-2
phonostage; Altmann Micro Machines
Attraction DAC; Blue Velvet DIY linestage;
deHavilland GM70 tube monoblock
amplifiers; PrimaLuna Prologue 7
monoblock amplifiers; E.A.R. 890 stereo
amplifier; Kotaro Micorpure mini-monitors,
QUAD ESL-57 (refurbished by QUADS
Unlimited), various DIY speaker designs;
Acrotec 6N and 8N copper, Kimber Select
KS-1030, Kimber KCAG interconnects; Fadel
Art Streamflex Plus, Acrotec 8N copper
speaker cable
The Absolute Sound September 2007 97

More Choices in
an Outstanding
Product Range
DALI Mentor 2 and
Mentor 6 Loudspeakers
Robert Harley
D
anish Audiophile Loud-
speaker Industries (DALI)
has quite a track record of
producing loudspeakers that deliver
great sound at sensible prices. Its $1595
IKON 6, reviewed by Robert E. Greene
in Issue 164, won our Affordable Loud-
speaker of the Year Award in Issue
168. The company’s $4300 Helicon 400
(reviewed by Neil Gader in Issue 155)
quickly became the speaker to beat for
Equipment
Report
the money. And if price is
no object, DALI’s $42k Megaline
produced “the most convincing repro-
duction of orchestral music” that Robert
Greene has encountered (Issue 146).
This consistency in sound quality
was apparent during an unusual demo
I attended at DALI’s Danish factory.
I listened to the same piece of music
played on every model in the line, starting
with the tiny budget Concept Series all
The Absolute Sound September 2007 99

the way to the ribbon-based
Megaline, and heard a re-
markable similarity in tonal
balance, soundstaging, timbral
purity, and other qualities.
This experience suggested to
me that the design team not
only has a singular vision of
what a loudspeaker should
do, but also possesses the en-
gineering chops to realize that
vision across a huge range of
products and price points.
Now DALI has brought to the
U.S. the new Mentor Series, a line
of just two models positioned
midway between the IKON
and the Helicon lines. Priced at
$3500 per pair, the Mentor 6 is
a four-way floorstanding speaker
employing two 6.5" mid/bass
drivers coupled to DALI’s hybrid
tweeter module. (The module,
which mates a 1" dome driver
to a ribbon tweeter, is a corner-
stone technology of DALI.) The
stand-mounted $2300 Mentor 2
is essentially the top 40% of the
Mentor 6—a three-way system
employing a single 6.5" mid/bass
driver mated to the custom hybrid
tweeter module. (See Technology
sidebar for design details.)
Both the Mentor 2 and 6 are
finished in genuine cherry-wood
veneer and feature two pairs of
binding posts for bi-wiring.
Listening to the Mentor 6
I auditioned the Mentor 2 and
Mentor 6 in two different systems
(see Associated Equipment below),
with the Mentor 2s mounted on
Sound Anchor stands. DALI rec-
ommends positioning both models
facing straight ahead, with no toe-
in.
The Mentor 6 reminded me in many
ways of my reference loudspeaker, the
Wilson MAXX 2, but scaled down. The
two loudspeakers share qualities that
are rare in loudspeakers of any price,
including a transient fidelity and dynamic
coherence that allow the speakers to
speak with one voice dynamically over the
DALI Mentor 2 and
Mentor 6 Loudspeakers
entire spectrum. In many loudspeakers
the bottom-end doesn’t quite match the
midrange and treble in quickness, speed,
and agility, a phenomenon that usually
isn’t perceived directly, but contributes
to a sense of sluggishness and
dilution of musical energy.
It would be one thing if
the Mentor 6’s bottom end
had only to keep up dy-
namically with a midrange
and treble with conventional
transient response. It’s quite
another when that midrange
and treble are as extraordi-
narily clean, fast, and detailed
as the Mentor 6’s. In fact, the
ribbon sets the performance
bar for quickness, with the
rest of the spectrum, astonish-
ingly, keeping up. There’s no
discontinuity in the steepness
of leading edges or in decays.
From the bottom end to the top,
the Mentor 6 starts and stops on
a dime.
Looking at bass performance
in more detail, I was surprised by
the Mentor 6’s sense of slam and
dynamic impact, coupled with its
resolution of bottom-end nuances.
I didn’t think that two 6.5" drivers
could go so low and play so loudly,
or that a ported cabinet could
exhibit such quickness, freedom
from overhang, and absence of
port-induced artifacts. I’ve long held
reservations about bass-reflex enclo-
sures, but recent experience suggests
that designers are capitalizing on the
advantages of ported cabinets and
engineering out the drawbacks. The
MAXX 2 and Mentor 6 are prime
examples of bass-reflex designs that
don’t trade away transient performance
for a port’s intrinsic advantages in
extension.
The Mentor 6’s bass was tuneful and
articulate, with outstanding resolution
of pitch and small-scale dynamics.
This quality made it easy to hear
nuances of expression by great bass
players, from Eddie Gomez’ terrific
playing on the eponymous disc from the
group Steps Ahead to Stanley Clarke on
The Absolute Sound September 2007 101
 DALI Mentor 2 and
Mentor 6 Loudspeakers

The Rite of Strings. In addition, the Mentor
6’s bass integrated very well and very
easily in my room, with a neutral overall
bass balance and seamless integration
with the midrange.
The Mentor 6’s sound was also char-
acterized by an “alive” immediacy which,
when coupled with the outstanding
midrange and treble resolution, beautiful-
ly resolved interplay between musicians.
A good example is the joyful (and joyous)
performance by Stephan Grappelli, David
Grisman, Mike Marshall, Mark O’Conner,
and Rob Wasserman on the LP simply
called Live. The Mentor 6 resolved not
only the transient and tonal qualities of
the various stringed instruments (violin,
mandolins, guitars, acoustic bass) but,
more importantly, conveyed the feeling
of spontaneous creation by these great
musicians.
I found the Mentor 6’s overall tonal
balance a bit on the lively side, with the
treble having a full measure of energy
and detail. Cymbals took on a slight
prominence in the mix, and the sense of
air and openness in the top end was also
from Holst’s The Planets (Mehta conduct-
ing the L.A. Philharmonic on London),
for example, took on an added musical
and sonic emphasis. Although a slightly
forward treble balance can be a deal-
breaker with many loudspeakers, the
Mentor 6’s complete freedom from treble
grain and edge allowed the top end to
be open and detailed without inducing
listening fatigue.
Finally, the Mentor 6 played surpris-
ingly loudly without strain or dynamic
compression. This quality was apparent
on a wide range of music, from rock to

Technology increased. The tambourine in “Jupiter” full-scale orchestral music. Many moder-

The Mentor 2 is a three-way design that mates a 6.5" mid/
bass unit to DALI’s custom tweeter module. This custom
module, designed by DALI, incorporates a 1" soft-dome
tweeter and a 0.7" x 1.8" ribbon driver on a single front-
plate. A version of this module is employed through most
of the DALI line, from the IKON to the upper-end Euphonia
Series.1 Although the modules look similar in the IKON,
Mentor, Helicon, and Euphonia lines, they are actually all
different (though identical within each line).
Nonetheless, the concept is the same; the dome tweeter
is operated up to only 12kHz where it crosses over to the
ribbon, which extends the response to 34kHz. This approach
uses each driver in the band where it operates most
effectively. Above 10kHz, the dome tweeter begins to lose
accuracy and its dispersion is no longer ideal. The ribbon,
by contrast, is perfectly suited to reproducing music’s top
octave by virtue of its ultra-low-mass diaphragm. It is never
asked to handle high power or reproduce wide dynamics,
two areas where ribbons can fall short. In addition, the
dome tweeter is never operated anywhere near its first
break-up mode. DALI believes that by mating a dome
tweeter to a ribbon driver, it capitalizes on the strengths
and avoids the technical shortcomings of each type of driver.
This modular design is a central element in DALI’s product
range (except the entry-level Concept loudspeakers).
The 6.5" mid/bass driver is operated up to 3.4kHz in the
Mentor 2. This driver is designed and built by DALI and
incorporates many proprietary design techniques. The
basket is die-cast aluminum rather than stamped, resulting
in a more rigid structure. DALI has conducted a lot of
research into surround materials, magnet structures, and
voice-coil ventilation, all of which is incorporated in the
driver’s design.
In the Mentor 6, one such 6.5" driver is operated up to
800Hz, with the second 6.5" driver running from 800Hz to
3.4kHz. Each of the two 6.5" drivers is mounted in its own
sub-enclosure and independently ported at the enclosure’s
rear. The crossovers are quite sophisticated, employing
low-order electrical rolloffs in conjunction with the drivers’
acoustic rolloffs to achieve moderate-to-steep slopes. The
phase is controlled by an “acoustic lens” that maintains
time alignment in the drivers. Two pairs of high-quality
input terminals are provided for bi-wiring.
In both Mentor loudspeakers, the drivers are mounted
on a separate flat baffle that is, in turn, mounted to the
enclosure’s curved front surface. This baffle is a laminate
structure containing layers of MDF alternated with a
soft rubber-like material that absorbs driver energy. The
result is that less vibration is transferred to the enclosure.
Reducing enclosure resonance by absorbing it at the source
(the driver-baffle interface) obviates the need for internal
bracing, which DALI believes can degrade sound quality
in several ways. First, bracing shifts resonant energy up in
frequency and increases the resonance’s “Q” (steepness).
According to DALI, a low-Q resonance at a lower frequency
is less audible and fatiguing. Second, bracing can restrict
the free flow of air in the reflex enclosure. According to
DALI, ported enclosures work best when the air in the
enclosure is unrestricted and encounters no directional
change.
Although the Mentors’ impedance is moderate across the
band (averaging about 6 ohms), its phase angle is benign.
(A loudspeaker’s phase angle plot shows how reactive a
load it presents to the amplifier, whether capacitive or
inductive. The closer to a flat line the phase angle plot, the
more like a resistor the speaker appears to the amplifier,
and the easier the speaker is for the amplifier to drive,
all other factors being equal.) This combination suggests
that both Mentor models present a fairly easy load to an
amplifier. RH
1
Occasional TAS contributor Max Shepherd bought a pair of Euphonias
before writing for TAS and lives near me, giving me an opportunity to
hear his superb system.

The Absolute Sound September 2007 103


ately sized loudspeakers tend to congeal
at high levels, with instrumental timbres
hardening into a synthetic roar and image
outlines fusing into a confused mess. To
Specs &
Pricing
Mentor 2
Frequency response: 39Hz–34kHz ±3dB
Sensitivity: 86.5dB (2.83V/1m)
Impedance: 6 ohms
Maximum SPL: 108dB
Recommended amplifier power: 40–180W
Crossover frequencies: 3.4kHz, 12kHz
Loading: Bass-reflex
Driver complement: One 6.5" mid/bass unit,
one hybrid tweeter module (one 28mm
soft-dome tweeter, one 17 x 45mm ribbon)
Dimensions: 7.7" x 17.3" x 13.8"
Weight: 22.2 lbs.
Finish: Cherry wood veneer
Price: $2300
Mentor 6
Frequency response: 36Hz–34kHz ±3dB
Sensitivity: 89.5dB (2.83V/1m)
Impedance: 6 ohms
Maximum SPL: 111dB
Recommended amplifier power: 40–200W
Crossover frequencies: 800Hz, 3kHz, 12kHz
Loading: Bass-reflex
Driver complement: Two 6.5" mid/bass unit,
one hybrid tweeter module (one 28mm
soft-dome tweeter, one 17 x 45mm ribbon)
Dimensions: 7.7" x 40.4" x 15.4"
Weight: 56.5 lbs.
Finish: Cherry wood veneer
Price: $3500
DALI USA
2919 Valmont Street, #206
Boulder, CO 80303
dali-usa.com
Associated Equipment
System One: Mark Levinson No.326S
preamplifier and No.433 power amplifier,
Arcam DV-139 universal disc player,
Esoteric P-03 Universal Transport and
D-03 DAC, Basis 2800 Signature turntable
with Basis Vector Model 4 tonearm
and Transfiguration Orpheus cartridge,
Aesthetix Rhea phonostage, MIT Oracle
MA loudspeaker cable, Shunyata Hydra-
series AC conditioners and Anaconda
power cords, MIT Z-System AC conditioners,
Kimber 4TC speaker cable
System Two: Simaudio Moon I-7
integrated amplifier, Esoteric SZ-1 CD/SACD
player, Cambridge Audio Azur 840C CD
player, Kimber 4TC speaker cable, Kimber
Hero interconnects
DALI Mentor 2 and
Mentor 6 Loudspeakers
its credit, the Mentor 6 kept its composure
well into lease-breaking volume levels.
Listening to the Mentor 2
The Mentor 2 is essentially a stand-mounted
version of the Mentor 6, with a single 6.5"
driver and a smaller enclosure. Not sur-
prisingly, the two loudspeakers shared
many characteristics, particularly at low-
to-moderate volume levels. The Mentor
2 doesn’t have the depth and dynamic
impact in the bass of its big brother, yet
retains the same midbass articulation and
dynamic coherence across the spectrum. I
thought the Mentor 2 had a bit better ability
to disappear into the soundstage, with a
slightly greater sense of space. As with the
6, the Mentor 2 had an extremely quick,
clean, and detailed midrange and treble pre-
sentation, with no grain or edge.
If you are forced into bookshelf
mounting, the Mentor 2 is an outstanding
choice. But if you plan to position your
loudspeakers on the floor on stands, the
Mentor 6 is a better alternative. First, in
addition to its deeper extension and more
dynamic presentation, the Mentor 6 is
3dB more sensitive than the Mentor 2.
This means you’ll need half the amplifier
power with the 6 to achieve the same
playback level. Second, by the time you
buy quality stands, the Mentor 2’s price
will approach the price of the 6. In my
view, it’s better to put the money into a
larger enclosure and additional driver than
into stands. With either speaker, however,
you get the same dynamic coherence,
extremely detailed and resolved midrange
and treble, and tremendous clarity.
Conclusion
The new DALI Mentor 2 and Mentor 6
loudspeakers extend the brand’s reputa-
tion for sound quality and value. They
deliver outstanding musical performance,
and are remarkable for their dynamic
agility, bottom-end weight and impact,
grain-free reproduction of timbre, and,
particularly, for their clarity and resolu-
tion. In addition, both these speakers
feature intelligent engineering and
excellent build-quality. The addition of
the Mentor line gives music lovers even
more choices from this superb loud-
speaker manufacturer. TAS
The Absolute Sound September 2007 105
 THE
Cutting Edge

A New
T
he CD7 is the first CD player that
the Audio Research Corporation
Reference? has called a “Reference” product.
Clearly the word means something
Audio Research Reference special to ARC, and though the proof, as
CD7 CD Player always, is in the listening, it is fair to note
that previous “Reference” products from
ARC have indeed been reference quality.
Jonathan Valin Like its predecessor—the CD3—the
CD7 is a remote-controlled, top-loading
CD player, fitted with a Philips Pro2
transport and a 24-bit Crystal DAC.
106 September 2007 The Absolute Sound

Like the CD3, it has both single-ended
and balanced outputs (as well as digital
outputs). The chief difference between it
and the CD3 is an entirely new and much
more sophisticated vacuum-tube output
stage “taken directly” from the Reference
3 preamplifier (my current reference).
Powered by four 6H30 triodes—and by a
massive power supply that uses three more
6H30s for high-voltage regulation—the
CD7’s gain stage is said to give the player
the speed, resolution, and neutral balance
of the Ref 3.
Although I was forewarned that the
CD7 requires a great deal of break-in
time, I didn’t count on several months.
Nonetheless, that is what it took to turn
For the first time
the battle has been
carried to the LP’s
own turf
what I first thought was merely an amiable
player (not unlike a greatly improved
CD3) into something of a breakthrough.
All of my comments apply to the broken-
in unit.
It isn’t difficult to hear what makes a
broken-in CD7 extraordinary. Just listen
to a piano concerto, like the Prokofiev
First with Yevgeny Kissin and the Berlin
Philharmonic [DG].
I suggest a piano concerto because it
so neatly illustrates some of the things
that CD players excel at and some of the
things they don’t. For instance, CD players
have always been good at reproducing
certain aspects of a grand piano’s sound,
in part because the power and reach
of a piano plays to CD’s strengths—its
superior transient response, dynamic
range, pitch stability, and flat-to-near-
DC bottom end. Thus, it isn’t surprising
that the CD7 reproduces Kissin’s
Steinway with incisiveness, authority, and
tremendous bottom-octave clout. What
is surprising is the amount of lifelike air
and three-dimensional bloom the ARC
recovers in the piano’s bass, middle, and
top octaves—things that CD players are
not good at.
Indeed, one of the chief problems
with CD is its lack of air, bloom, and
The Cutting Edge
dimensionality. Unlike analog playback or
live concerts, instruments on CD tend to
sound as flat and thin as playing cards. A
voice on CD, for instance, doesn’t seem
to come from a rounded human head but
from a flat spot in space—a plane. That
plane can be located in the foreground,
middleground, or background—CDs
have never had a problem with layered
depth—but it is a plane, a two-dimensional
surface.
In life, instruments are not two-
dimensional propagators of sound. A
piano, for instance, generates a virtual
hemisphere of tone and overtone that
surrounds the body of the instrument
from front to back and side to side. Of
course, the piano is more “directional”
(outputs more energy) in certain arcs of
the hemisphere than in others, depending
on the register it is played in and the
intensity with which it is played. Still, as a
sound source it is not a two-dimensional
plane but a three-dimensional hemisphere,
and I would argue that accurately
capturing the way it propagates sound is
one of the chief differences between hi-fi
and a fair semblance of the real thing.
To illustrate my point, take a look at the
charts below diagramming the directional
characteristics of a grand piano (from the
late John Eargle’s indispensable textbook,
Music, Sound, and Technology [Van Nostrand
Reinhold, 1995]).
As you can see in Illustration A, a
grand piano playing in its upper octaves
projects most of its acoustical energy
in a relatively narrow band from about
midway above the sounding board to
the piano’s lid. Listening to a typical
CD player, you would think that this
narrow beam emanating from a point
in space was all there was to the piano’s
sound. Note, however, that the grand
piano has additional lower-level output
throughout the 180º of its soundfield—
that it not only “beams” but “blooms”
in a hemispherical pattern. Note, as well,
how the distribution of acoustical energy
throughout the hemisphere changes with
changes in register—and how the relative
directionality of the piano’s notes changes
along with it.
High notes being the most directional
tend to sound more “focused,” higher up,
and more forward in acoustic space than
mids and lows, with only a faint feathery
cushion of tone and overtone from the
piano’s hemispherical dispersion pattern
giving them their shallower sense of
depth and volume. Midrange notes, on the
other hand, project their fullest acoustical
power in a considerably wider arc than
treble notes (see Illustration B) and,
depending on register, have considerably
more acoustical output throughout their
180º of dispersion. As a result, they tend
to sound bigger and more diffused in
focus than treble notes, with that more
substantial cushion of omnidirectional
sound also making them fuller in depth
and volume than treble notes. Bass
notes sound bigger still, since at 250Hz
and below the piano is projecting its full
power in a nearly omnidirectional pattern,
both to the rear and to the front of the
The “0’s” in these charts indicate full acoustical
output. The negative numbers a relative
reduction of power in dBs (e.g., “-1” means that
the instrument produces 1dB less acoustical
power than it does at “0” output).
The Absolute Sound September 2007 109
The Cutting Edge
piano (see Illustration C). As a result, bass
notes sound huge, “deep,” broad, thickly
cushioned—often seeming to extend
“through the floor” on powerful sustained
notes (as they almost literally do).
I haven’t given this short course in
musical acoustics for no reason. I’m
trying to suggest, however inadequately,
that reproducing the characteristic
way an instrument projects its sound in
various registers—what I call action or
bloom—goes a long way toward creating
the illusion of a real instrument playing
in a real space, and that LP and, to a
much lesser degree, SACD reproduce
instrumental bloom (or as much of it as
microphones are capable of capturing),
and that CD players typically do not.
Thus the flatness of their imaging.
I used to think that a CD player’s lack
of bloom indicated a loss of information,
that the lower-level signals that add volume
and density to timbres and dimensionality
to instrumental images weren’t being
110 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
adequately quantized at 16 bits. But the
Ref CD7 has made me question that
assumption. Either the CD7 is adding an
analog-like coloration that makes it sound
as if it has bloom, or it is actually better
resolving very-low-level information that
has been encoded on the disc.
What makes me lean strongly toward
the latter position is the magical way that
the CD7 also conjures up air. Once again,
this is not something that typical high-end
CD players reproduce well. Indeed, one
of the chief complaints leveled against
early digital was the unnatural darkness
and deadness of its silences, which
seemed more like the black inert silences
of outer space than the active silences of
concert halls. Once again, like bloom, the
ambient air in a hall or recording studio is
a very-low-level sound that generally isn’t
fully replicated by most CD players. In
this case, I think, because of CD’s biggest
problem: its treble filter.
It’s very old news, but cutting off
frequency response at 20kHz also cuts
off information. All you have to do is
listen to an LP or SACD to hear how
much is lost—and not just in the treble. A
large part of the reason why CDs sound
so airless and closed in on top and so
unnaturally dark in overall tonal balance
is because of that 20kHz brickwall
filter, above which nothing is recorded
or reproduced. I once compared it to
turning off the lights above the stage,
because that’s the way it sounds—as if
every instrument is shrouded in darkness
and is itself darker-hued in timbre.
What is surprising
is the amount of
lifelike air and bloom
the ARC recovers—
things that CD players
are not good at
From the very inception of CD,
some engineers have attempted to inject
LP-like air and light into digital’s dark
landscapes via various analog kludges, be
they tubes in the output stage (starting
with CAL Labs, which is almost starting
at the start), belt-drives on the transport
mechanism (beginning with CEC in
1983), turntable-like isolation techniques
(mass-loading, clamps, etc.), or the lavish
use of high-quality component parts. The
trouble with most of these analog “fixes”
was that, in trying to turn the CD into
something that sounded more like an
LP, analog-minded designers sacrificed
some of the things that CD did right—
particularly in the ways of dynamics and
bottom-end power, speed, and extension.
But that is not the case with the CD7.
It retains in full CD’s characteristic
virtues of superior transient speed, dynamic
range, and bottom-end extension and
sock, while adding not analog’s colorations
but some of its subtlest virtues—some of
the very things that make LPs sound like
live music and musicians, things that aren’t
typically part of the digital skill set.
To return to the Prokofiev First Piano
Concerto on DG, through the CD7 the
top-octave of Kissin’s Steinway (and of
the Berlin Phil’s strings and winds, for that
The Cutting Edge
Specs &
Pricing
Type: Top-loading, vacuum-tube CD
player/transport
Analog outputs: (Stereo) balanced XLR,
single-ended RCA
Digital outputs: XLR balanced AES/EBU,
BNC coax SPDIF 75-ohm
Frequency response: 0.5–20kHz ±1dB
S/N ratio: 110dBA
Distortion: .005% 1kHz
DAC: 24-bit Delta-Sigma
Channel separation: 95dB 1kHz
Sampling Frequency: 44.1kHz
Quantization: 16-bit linear per channel
Dimensions: 19” x 5 1/4” x 15 3/8”
Weight: 32.5 lbs.
Price: $8995
Audio Research Corporation
3900 Annapolis Lane North
Plymouth, Minnesota 55447
(763) 577-9700
audioresearch.com
JV’s Reference System
Loudspeakers: MAGICO Mini, MBL 101 E,
Ascendo M-S MkII
Linestage preamps: Audio Research
Reference 3, Audio Space Reference 2,
MBL 6010 D, Lamm Industries L2
Phonostage preamps: Audio Research PH-
7, Lamm Industries LP-2 Deluxe
Power amplifiers: Audio Research
Reference 610T, Lamm ML-2, MBL 9008,
MBL 9011, Pass Labs X350.5
Analog source: Walker Audio Proscenium
Black Diamond record player
Phono cartridges: Air Tight PC-1
Digital source: ARC Reference CD7
Cable and interconnect: Tara Labs “Zero”
interconnect, Tara Labs “Omega” speaker
cable, Tara Labs “The One” power cords,
Synergistic Research Absolute Reference
speakers cables and interconnects
Accessories: Shakti Hallographs; Walker
Prologue Reference equipment stand;
Walker Prologue amp stands; Richard
Gray Power Company 600S/Pole Pig
line/power conditioner; Cable Elevators
Plus; Walker Valid Points and Resonance
Control discs; Winds Arm Load meter;
Clearaudio Matrix record cleaner; HiFi-
Tuning silver/gold fuses
matter) isn’t just clear; virtually any good
CD player can do clarity with count-the-
angels precision. And it isn’t just joltingly
dynamic; virtually any good CD player can
do dynamics. It is delicate, dimensional,
very finely detailed, and—yes—airy,
almost like a piano sounds in life.
112 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
The sense of Kissin’s piano blooming
into acoustic space—of tone and overtone
blossoming from and around the instrument
rather than being beamed from a single
plane—is unparalleled in my experience
of digital, and so close to what I hear in
a concert hall and on my analog rig that
I am genuinely nonplussed. Here, for the
first time in my experience with CD, is a
realistic sense of how that big instrument
projects its sound (and not just in the
treble), of the hemispherical dispersion
pattern that gives it its characteristic
timbre, texture, and three-dimensional
size and shape.
Add to this the Reference CD7’s
remarkably “analog-like” (in the sense of
color-neutral, rather than warm or cool
or bright or, most especially, dark) tonal
balance. Indeed, the Reference CD7
sounds so neutral and transparent from
top to bottom that it is even harder to tell
it from LP playback, whereas normally
the differences would be unmistakable
because of CD’s darkness. It is as if
instead of taking their customary separate
paths to the absolute sound, CD and LP
had suddenly chanced upon a common
road—as if the aspects of live music that
both reproduce well aren’t entirely different
ones but some of the same ones, as if, once
broken in, the CD7 preserves all that CD
is good at, while diminishing many of the
colorations (the darkness, the flatness, the
airlessness, the lack of bloom) that make
CDs sound less like real music.
So where’s the rub?
Well, there are a few. First, while the
CD7’s treble is the best—the airiest, the
most nearly neutral, and the most finely
detailed—I’ve heard from CD, there is
still a sense of a “ceiling,” of things beings
spun out so far and no farther. I suppose
this is inevitable in a digital player with
a 44.1kHz sampling rate. It’s not as if
anything blatant goes missing; rather, it is
the very sense of a top-end limit (or the
absence of limitlessness, if you will) that
slightly nags at you, particularly if you’re
coming from LP or SACD.
Second, while a superior soundstager
in comparison to other digital players,
the CD7 does not have the stage width
of a first-rate analog rig like my Walker
Proscenium Black Diamond record
player, Air Tight PC-1 moving coil, and
ARC PH7 phonostage.
Third, the ARC’s neutrality and
reproduction of low-level details of
timbre and dynamic are remarkable by any
measure. But there is a very slight, very
fine grain to the PH7’s sound—probably
a tube artifact—that is, frankly, a hallmark
of many ARC front-end products. What
makes critiquing this problematical is that
it is an extremely attractive coloration,
which makes things like delicate overtones
or dynamic nuances stand forth, as if
the very slight grain of the CD7 were
“bringing out” details the way the texture
of canvas takes paint.
I have often heard the argument made
that digital should sound digital, that
making it sound anything but what it is
diminishes its virtues (as analog kludges
admittedly often have), that it is its own
thing with its own set of virtues—a
parallel sonic universe to those of vinyl
and SACD. In my opinion, this argument
is a bit misleading. CD shouldn’t sound
“digital”; it shouldn’t have any sound of
its own, no more than analog should.
Ideally, what both should aim to sound
like is music, the absolute sound.
Of course, both CD and LP do have
their own characteristic sonic signatures,
and I think what people mean when they
object to analog-like digital playback
is that, in aping analog, CD makers
are not carrying the medium closer to
the real thing but nudging it closer to
the colorations of another medium.
However, the Reference CD7 proves
that analog means do not have to result
in analog colorations, that they can be a
direct route to the subtle sonic virtues
that LPs have, until now, had almost sole
access to. (It also proves, in passing, that
well-executed tube-based gain stages are
capable of higher low-level resolution
than solid-state gain stages.)
Is there room for improvement in the
CD7? Goodness, yes. The best analog still
sounds considerably more realistic than
the best digital. But the gap is narrowing,
and for the first time (at least in my
experience) the battle has been carried to
the LP’s own turf. For that achievement
alone, the CD7 deserves to be called
“Reference.” TAS
 HP’s
WORKSHOP
Nola Grand Reference Series IV,
Version 2
The most recent update of this rather
massive speaker system (four towers in
all) has finally solved the problem that
designer Carl Marchisotto didn’t get
completely under control until now. That
problem: an audible discontinuity—mani-
fested as a kind of suck-out, regardless
of the speakers’ placements—between
the main speakers (upfront) and the two
woofer towers (at the rear).
The woofer towers themselves have
remained unchanged in the years since
the “statement” system was introduced
in 2001—that is to say, four 12-inch
moving-coil drivers, port-loaded, per
side, in a cabinet so solid you’d hate to
have it fall on you. The old and revered
Dahlquist DQLP electronic low-pass filter
hasn’t been changed either. And the front
tower drivers—nine ribbon tweeters, four
midbass, and six midrange drivers per
side—have remained the same through
the last two modifications. What’s differ-
ent this time is an updating of the custom-
designed external crossover for the 300+
pound (each—I know, really and truly)
multiway hybrid assemblage.
That change has solved the sonic gap
and discontinuity between front and rear
speakers, while bringing up the heretofore
somewhat beclouded midbass, giving the
sound greater articulation and definition
on the all-critical fundamentals.
Along with these changes also came a
silvery sweetness to the top octaves the
speaker did not have before, rendering it
much more “electrostatic” or “ribbon-
like” at the top, with concurrent gains in
airiness. A major improvement that would
seem to have justified a Series V designa-
tion. dark (read: yin-like) sounding as the other
VPI SuperScoutmaster Reference
There have been three changes, i.e.,
updates, to the Scoutmaster Signature
version of this ’table. First, Harry Weisfeld
has added what he calls a Super Platter,
114 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Updates, Further Thoughts,
Sneak Previews, and a few
Capsules
which is, in his words, “twenty-five pounds
of black acrylic and stainless steel, in an
Oreo-cookie layer system”—this to lower
background noise and increase speed sta-
bility. The Reference now uses new TNT
Mini-feet for, to quote Weisfeld again,
“solid footing with isolation built in”—this
to separate “the motor from the ’table and
lower noise further.” And finally, he has
changed the pickup arm from the JMW-9
Signature to the JMW-10.5i, which allows
you to change VTA while the record is
playing (ah, sweet relief!). This arm also
has, sez Weisfeld, “lower tracing distortion
due to its 10.5-inch length.”
Well, one thing’s for sure. The Scout-
master Reference sounds both different
and significantly better than its predeces-
sors in the series, all of which I found,
dollar for dollar, admirable and a real steal.
This one costs $7400, which is getting up
yonder—that’s $900 for the heavy platter,
$300 for the isolation feet, and $700 for the
arm, added onto the base price of $5500.
Still, for a playback system sans cartridge,
that’s not otherworldly. (As to cartridges,
Weisfeld is enchanted with the Dynavector
XV-1s, as am I, but that costs almost as
much as the turntable alone. Okay, so it’s
only $4250.)
The Reference sounds a great deal
faster, both on dynamic swings and tran-
sients, than the earlier, more romantic eu-
phonics of the earlier ’tables. Therefore, its
overall character has changed. It is not as
VPI ’tables, and I find this all to the good.
At this early point in the listening, I am
not sure exactly which of the changes is
making what I see as a substantial differ-
ence. The most likely suspect would be
the arm, but then again both the improved
isolation and lower residual noise would
certainly contribute to the sonic results.
We shall, er, see.
Antique Sound Lab Hurricane
Model DT MkII
The updated version of this much-admired
tube monoblock (at 200 watts per channel)
isn’t very pretty to look at, and its price,
$6200, is significantly more than the best-
buy pricing of the original units. But it
does sound audibly better to these ears—a
little cleaner, with an increase in its delin-
eation of what I call continuousness, and
the bottom bass, already most fine in the
original, is tauter, thus better articulating
plucked transients in the low octaves.
The changes lie in the removal of global
negative feedback in the basic design, says
the Canadian importer, and the addition
of another balanced input circuit. Also,
the transformers have been remachined
“to tighter tolerances.” That newly homely
look—and the older one wasn’t the belle
of the ball—comes from the separa-
tion of the chassis into two layers, which
was done to reduce interference effects
between tubes and transformers.
I might add at this point that ASL’s 60-
watt Cadenza DT monoblock, at $6500,
is a little sweetheart of an amp, and
has been designed specifically with the
“golden ears” in mind. It sure puts out the
power, even using two 845 output tubes
in push-pull fashion. It ran, to the amaze-
ment of designer Lars Hansen, the large
King speakers, without stress or strain, to
concert-hall levels—this in Room 2 here
in Sea Cliff. And yes, it sounds better than
the Hurricanes. It’s purer, for one thing. I
will be doing a more detailed analysis when
I review it, perhaps in conjunction with
HP’s Workshop
Specs & Pricing ASL’s “purist” line stage, the Flora Ex DT,
now in house.
Nola Grand reference IV.2 Antique Sound Labs Hurricane DT MkII
Accent Speaker Technology, Ltd. and Cadenza DT amplifiers, Flora EX DT Three Accessories That Make a
1511 Lincoln Avenue linestage
Holbrook, NY 11741 Divergent Technologies (Distributor) Difference: Audience AR-12 Adept
(631) 738-2540 342 Frederick Street, Kitchener
Ontario N2H 2N9, Canada
Response power conditioner; Still-
info@NolaSpeakers.com
nolaspeakers.com/ (519) 749-1565 points Component Stand; Shakti
Price: $145,000 system, standard finish; divertech.com/home.html
$165,000 system, Piano Pomele Sapeli finish Prices: Hurricane DT MkII monoblock, $6200/ Hallograph
pair; Cadenza DT monoblock, $6500/pair; I shall have more to say about the impres-
VPI Super Scoutmaster reference Flora EX DT, $3000
VPI Industries, Inc. sive Audience power conditioner, whose
77 Cliffwood Ave. #3B Stillpoints Component Stand
Cliffwood, NJ 07721 Stillpoints LLC plain looks and light weight are, in terms
(732) 583-6895 Paul Wakeen of sonic effect, deceiving. But for the
vpi_help_4u@yahoo.com 2660 County Road D
vpiindustries.com/ Woodville, WI 54028 moment, let me say that I substituted it in
(651) 204-0605
Prices: VPI Super Scoutmaster Reference, info@stillpoints.us Room 2 for a Nordost Thor.1 I certainly
$5500 (Base), $7400 (as tested); VPI JMW 10.5i stillpoints.us
tonearm, $2300 Prices: 9" 3-legged component stand, $799 wasn’t expecting the Audience to wipe the
Shakti Hallograph
(tested); 9" 4-legged component stand, $999; Thor’s floor, but that it did in terms of
11" 3-legged component stand, $899; 11" 4-
Shakti Innovations legged component stand, $1149 (tested) cleanness, better transient response, and
511 Mount Holyoke Avenue
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272 Audience Adept Response Power fewer noise artifacts. What I wanted to do
(310) 459-5704 Conditioner
(877) 459-5704 (tollfree, USA and Canada Audience, LLC
to confirm that this finding wasn’t a fluke
only) 120 N. Pacific Street #K-9 effect was obtain several more samples to
info@shakti-innovations.com San Marcos, CA 92069
shakti-innovations.com (800) 565-4390 insert into the Reference System in Room
Price: $999/pair (2 pairs tested in room two) audience-av.com
Prices: aR12 12-outlet power conditioner,
3, but couldn’t connect with the manufac-
$4200; aR6 6-outlet, $2900; aR1p single outlet, turer in time for this issue. (Audience also
$495
is in the cable business, and those I have

116 September 2007 The Absolute Sound

not yet auditioned.)
The Stillpoint Component Stand is
another of the increasing number of
devices designed to provide a degree of
acoustic isolation between electronics and
the room/system interface. We tried, some
time ago, the Cambre racks from Canada,
which didn’t look as if they could do
Chinese take-out, but did. The Stillpoint,
like some of the other products in this
report, is wallflower-homely in appear-
ance, being little more than an adjustable
crossbar configuration you put under your
amps. There are various models—we are
currently using, and I am referring here
to, the four-legged unit ($1149). The dif-
ference it makes: better highs. The entire
top end opens up, sounding as if it has
come out from under a blanket. By “open
up,” in this context, I mean the top octaves
become airier and more translucent—the
perceived frequency response doesn’t
change at all. I have no idea what’s in play
here; I just know that this thing works.
Doing without it would be like putting a
light curtain back between you and the
soundfield.
Speaking of homely, and just plain
cheap-looking, the Shakti Hallographs
take the cake. They look and feel as if they
might fall apart if jostled too hard. Simple,
slightly shaped wooden poles, atop which
sit adjustable devices, looking somewhat
like a lacrosse stick without the netting, but
with equidistant strips of wood, coated
with what looks like tire rubber. When
they arrived, it took me no time to figure
out how to place them for maximum
audible effect (though someone had been
sent along to show me the ropes). Placed
near the four corners of Room 2, the Hal-
lographs’ “baskets” could be so angled that
the sonic soundstage and its surrounding
ambient field could be, and was, precisely
tailored for maximum coherency and au-
thenticity.
They don’t look as if they should work,
but they are actually, if you know your
room acoustics well, precision tools. In a
funny way, they remind me of the State
Technology Collimating Pillars that I
(briefly) reported on several issues ago.
These things supposedly have sophisticat-
ed devices inside their plain black columns
that allow you to do much the same thing
the Hallographs do. And in the reference
system in Room 3, they did that to dramatic
effect. Had I had the money, I would have
purchased one of these columns, and as
Corey Greenberg once did with a Bruce
Brisson MIT cable-termination box, sawed
it open for a peek at its innards.
It is, usually for this writer, maddening
when something has definite sonic effects
and you can find no reason, nor think of
any, to explain why and how. Ah, another
of the joys of high-end audio, particularly
when it comes to accessories. TAS
1
The system there consisted of the Hansen Kings,
the Burmester 911 Mk III amp and 011 preamplifier,
the VAS Citation I, and either the ASL Hurricanes or
Cadenzas, along with Nordost Valhalla cabling, and the
Edge CD player.
The Absolute Sound September 2007 117
Manufacturer’s Upcoming in
S T E R E O • M U LT I C H A N N E L A U D I O • M U S I C
COMMENT
Van Alstine
Transcendence Eight • 2007 Editors’ Choice Awards—
Thank you for the thoughtful and thorough review of our Transcendence a definitive compendium of
Eight vacuum-tube preamplifier. It is reassuring that you feel that our every product we recommend
design competes so well in the high-end marketplace. We took a long time
evaluating tubes for use in our linestage circuit before choosing the 6N1P. • Verity’s new Rienza loudspeaker
Although the 6N1P is basically a replacement for the 6DJ8, we found the • Recording the National
6N1P a vastly more musical-sounding tube for our designs.
The preamp was designed and evaluated here using our own OmegaStar
Philharmonic of Russia in high-
solid-state Fet Valve Ultra hybrid and Ultimate 70 vacuum-tube amplifiers. resolution surround
Neither of the amps could be characterized as being significantly romantic • Affordable tube amplification
sounding.  Our goal is to design products that don’t have a particular
sound. We want our equipment to get out of the way, as it delivers exactly from PrimaLuna
what the artist intended. • PS Audio’s new Power Plant
The phono section was developed and used almost exclusively with our
AC conditioners
own Longhorn Grado cartridge, built and sold here for many years. I have
never heard the cartridges used for the review. I will research this further. • Superb new one-touch digital
Because of our 30-day satisfaction-guarantee offered with our factory- room/speaker correction from
direct products, your readers can evaluate our products themselves with
confidence.
Copland
Frank Van Alstine

118 September 2007 The Absolute Sound

Music
Rock
Mary Gauthier:
Between Daylight
and Dark.
Joe Henry, producer. Lost Highway
8965 (CD; also available on LP).
Between Daylight and Dark, the title of Mary
Gauthier’s bracing fifth album, could
very well serve as the inscription for her
life. As she did on 2005’s excellent Mercy
Now, the 45-year-old doesn’t shirk from
gazing into darkness’ deepest shadows or
seeking spiritual guidance. Aided by a live
in-the-studio production, this is the most
mature the lesbian singer-songwriter has
yet sounded. She’s become even more
observational, drawing disappointment,
desire, consolation, and sorrow from
her own experiences as well as those of
surrounding characters.
Constantly compared to Lucinda
Williams, Gauthier has since evolved and
found her own style. While she possesses
a pronounced Bayou drawl, Gauthier
doesn’t rock out or belabor over sexual
trysts. There’s nothing sensually alluring
about her stark, gruff delivery or bluesy,
rough-hewn timbre. She’s got black dirt
on her boots and red clay in her lungs,
trudging along a folk path that forces
self-reflection, embraces simplicity, and
connects to hobo culture. Fifty years ago,
the Baton Rouge native would’ve been
at home with the era’s great train-song
writers. No wonder her favorite records
were never commercial blockbusters but,
like Gauthier’s work, bared raw truth and
emotion.
Such credibility issues have always
dogged contemporary alt-country
artists, a group that often lacks a tangible
connection to the subject matter. Gauthier
is a special case. The substance addictions,
suicidal tendencies, traumatic sadness,
and vagabond roaming that dominate
her narratives are hauntingly real—and
for good reason. An orphan who was
adopted as a child by a fundamentalist
Christian and alcoholic couple, Gauthier
started battling liquor at age 13. At 15,
she stole the family car—twice—the
Music Sonics Extraordinary
122 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
second time running off and shacking
up with drag queens. By 18, she’d twice
failed rehab and become accustomed to
jail cells. After another dozen years of
on-and-off-again struggles, she cleaned
up and began writing. Not surprisingly,
gothic overtones flow through her prose
as naturally as the Mississippi streams
through her hometown.
While her roots are now planted in
Nashville, she doesn’t miss the opportunity
on Between Daylight and Dark to lament
the havoc Hurricane Katrina wreaked on
Louisiana. Wedded to a faint marching
beat, “Can’t Find the Way” inches ahead
like a stubborn funeral procession, the
understated rhythm pulling and tugging,
refusing to give up. Gauthier doesn’t
mention any city by name, lending a
universality to the mass displacement
that affected the whole state. As someone
intimately familiar with shattered realities
and broken dreams, Gauthier sings like
an old soul. She’s down, but not out.
And so it goes on an album where
melancholic streaks, aching hearts, and
situational misery are often buttressed
by a rhino-hide fortitude that keeps
the narrator afloat. Gauthier vacillates
between going and staying (“Same Road,”
“I Ain’t Leaving”), yearns to break her
fall (“Soft Place to Land”), and, once she
locates comfort, is intent on holding on
to it (“Please”). Yet she’s most disarming
when walking the harrowing line that
separates disaster from survival.
“Snakebit” sketches a dire picture of
busted crucifixes, crying children, and
Excellent Good
candlelight. Icy piano notes, a moaning
slide, and a swampy stomp pattern
complete the feel. The music twists in the
same way that the forsaken protagonist’s
fingers curl around the handle of a gun,
leaving Gauthier’s gospel cry as the lone
glimmer that tragedy might be averted.
“Thanksgiving” is equally sobering.
Gauthier’s thorough tale of families
visiting loved ones in prison evokes
smells, thoughts, consequences, moods,
textures, and temperatures in a severe,
nearly invasive manner that even the
most transfixing television dramas cannot
deliver. Psychologically, she enters worlds
that crush lesser souls—an approach
understood and shared by those who
know what it’s like to beat long odds that
began stacking up against them the day
they were born.
Produced by Joe Henry, and featuring
guest appearances from Loudon
Wainwright and Van Dyke Parks, Between
Daylight and Dark is a stripped-down
spectacle. Primarily recorded on the spot,
with the musicians in one room and
minimal overdubs, the album features a
natural soundstage, crisp immediacy, and
vivid detail. Vide, the percussive thigh
slaps on “Last of the Hobo Kings” and
acoustic dynamics that extend from
the guitars to the plucked basses to the
reverberant drums, captured so that
even the various dampening and tuning
changes are audible. Bob Gendron
Further Listening: Patty Griffin:
Children Running Through; Tom Russell:
Hotwalker
Fair Poor

Kim Richey: Chinese
Boxes.
Giles Martin, producer. Vanguard
78923.
From the infectious “Jack And Jill” to the
propulsive title track, to the bittersweet
irony of courtship deconstructed in “I
Will Follow,” Kim Richey—back on
record for the first time in five years—is in
full flower. Chinese Boxes is a sweet album
in the sense that all of the creative and
sonic elements are properly accounted
for.
Richey sings with sensuality and
worldliness, and writes with an acute eye
for the ethereal lyric rife with devastating,
dead-on truth. Producer Giles Martin,
who recently gained a measure of fame (or
infamy, depending on one’s perspective)
for re-imagining Beatles songs on Love, is
a good fit here. He retains the drive and
edge of Richey’s early albums but ditches
the sludginess so that instrumental
interactions are more pronounced.
Concurrently, Martin evinces a fine touch
for the elegantly dramatic backdrops
producer Hugh Padgham crafted in 2002
for Richey’s haunting Rise.
Check out the lilting, yearning “Turn
Me,” fueled by an insistently strummed
acoustic guitar, fleshed out with a chiming
electric guitar, burbles of an electric
keyboard, and the low hum of an organ
deep in the mix. Rich but subtle, it’s a
sonic landscape immaculately designed to
heighten the restrained desire in Richey’s
breathy come-on. David McGee
Further Listening: Lucinda Williams:
Essence; Rosanne Cash: Rhythm and
Romance
Jason Isbell: Sirens
of the Ditch.
Isbell and Patterson Hood, producers.
New West 3025.
When Jason Isbell left the Drive-By
Truckers in April, the move was met with
surprise and sadness. He’d been a key
component of the Alabama-based sextet
since 2001, giving the group a formidable
triple-guitar front and handful of bracing
originals.
Isbell continues to delve into poignant
character- and situation-rich songwriting
on Sirens of the Ditch, a debut four years in
the making. Co-produced by head Trucker
Patterson Hood, who places Isbell’s voice
front and center and separates guitars to
the right and left, the non-fatiguing sonics
are nicely balanced if lacking distinctive
bass.
While “Brand New Kind of Actress”
chases the amp-buzzing rock familiar to
his old band, Isbell’s album is a more
relaxed affair that asks to be drunk in like
aural Southern Comfort. As evidenced
by his aching drawl and moaning solos,
the 28-year-old still has the blues. And
the waltzing piano ballad “Chicago
Promenade” advances a soulful influence
that a handful of his overly plain pop-
steeped numbers lack. But it’s reflective
tracks like “Dress Blues”—a gospel-tinted
narrative about families and war—that
demonstrate Isbell’s knack for bringing
important social issues into focus by
showing how they impact common people
and relaying the emotional outcomes in
an eminently relatable manner. BG
Further Listening: Drive-By Truckers:
Decoration Day; Derek Trucks: Joyful
Noise
Rock
Nina Nastasia and
Jim White: You
Follow Me.
Steve Albini, producer. FatCat 53.
There would seem to be nothing
groundbreaking about the pairing of
Nina Nastasia and Jim White. After all,
White, the grizzled Dirty Three drummer,
has been in the New York-based singer’s
backing group since 2002. But the songs
on You Follow Me are a true collaboration,
the symbiotic pair engaging in musical
conversation with the natural grace of
longtime lovers. When Nastasia pushes
forward on “I Write Down Lists,” White
beats a hasty retreat; “Our Discussion”
finds the drummer hanging around the
edges, his junkheap clatter echoing the
emotional distance in the song. The duo
comes to an uneasy truce on “I Come
After You,” locking in for one last dance.
Recording engineer Steve Albini is the
album’s secret weapon, expertly capturing
the intimacy of the sessions. Each squeak
of Nastasia’s guitar strings has been
preserved and White’s nuanced playing is
consistently revelatory. There is a natural
soundstage, and the instruments exhibit
above-average decay.
More than anything, this subtle
recording is the sound of two musicians
completely in tune with one another.
Witness the slow elegy of “The Day I
Would Bury You,” where White gently
nudges the singer onward, holding her
aloft until she regains her footing and
marches forth alone. Andy Downing
Further Listening: Loose Fur: Loose Fur;
Neko Case: Blacklisted
The Absolute Sound September 2007 123

Tiny Vipers: Hands
Across the Void.
Jesy Fortino and Chris Commons,
producers. Sub Pop 739.
A throwback to when album art signified
records’ moods, the cover of the debut
from Seattle-based Tiny Vipers is
reminiscent of the iconic symbolism of
R.E.M.’s Murmur. Akin to the disorienting
kudzu depicted on the Georgia band’s
1982 effort, the gorgeous mountains, trees,
and lake seen here form a double image
created by the water’s reflection. The
picture is both peaceful and threatening;
viewers can’t tell if the person wading
into the water will find bliss or if she’ll
be swallowed by the darkness hovering in
the distance.
Sparse, minimalist, and introspective,
Tiny Vipers’ contrast-rich music is
similarly deceptive. Songs simultaneously
hint at soothing catharsis and ominous
fright. Written and performed by Jesy
Fortino—for whom the band name is
a way of standing out amidst standard-
fare coffeehouse folk artists that, aside
from acoustic-guitar playing and fragile
singing, have little in common with her
naked meditations and methodical note
patterns—the set shows how stillness
occasionally makes the loudest impact.
Recorded with vintage microphones
and analog equipment, the spacious
sonics prize instrumental textures and
atmospheric details, presenting intimacies
such as Fortino’s quivering timbre, the
scrape of fingers against strings (“Aron”),
and patient creep of a Oberheim Two-
Voice synthesizer (“Forest on Fire”). BG
Further Listening: Joanna Newsom: Ys;
Bonnie “Prince” Billy: I See A Darkness
Fionn Regan: The
End of History.
Regan, producer. Lost Highway 02800.
Deft guitar playing, a confident voice
singing literate musings on journeys both
physical and metaphysical, and an abiding
gentle heart mark the debut from this 26-
year-old Irishman as surely as Nick Drake
staked out his turf with the doomed
beauty of his insecurities.
More eerily, Regan, in sound and style,
seems a clone of the tragic, enormously
gifted folk singer Jackson C. Frank,
so much so that an A/B test of their
recordings reveals striking similarities.
One huge difference between Regan and
his muses, though, is a sunnier disposition.
He may lament, in “Black Water Child,”
that “I made you rich/and you made
me poor,” but the strutting rhythmic
outburst ensuing from this declaration
evokes his steely focus on surmounting
love’s labors, bruised though he be, with
undaunted courage.
Regan’s production is stark, bright,
and soothing. The finger-picked acoustic
guitar figures at the start of his songs
(very reminiscent of Frank’s modus
operandi) are always robust and evocative.
Typically, vocals charge out of the mix
as the music settles into a warm hum,
taking listeners to vivid checkpoints in
Regan’s imagination. Personal demons
undercut Frank’s and Drake’s journeys,
but Fionn Regan will get there, and it will
be beautiful. DM
Further Listening: Jackson C. Frank:
Blues Run the Game; Nick Drake: Pink
Moon
Rock
Bruce Springsteen
with the Sessions
Band: Live in Dublin.
Springsteen, producer. Columbia
88697 09582 (two CDs).
Bruce Springsteen’s 2006 release We
Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions struck
the perfect chord for a troubled time.
It renewed and revitalized songs
from the traditional, folk, and protest
catalogs. More importantly, the record
overflowed with genuine passion and
sparkling instrumentations that captured
an America reeling from a slow-bleed
war, domestic and international terrorist
threats, the anguish of Hurricane Katrina,
and a deepening cultural divide.
I attended Springsteen’s Seeger Sessions
concert at the Greek Theater in Los
Angeles last June and was elated and
inspired as I exited the amphitheater. For
three intermission-less hours Springsteen
prowled the stage, generously allowing
every musician to shine as part-conductor,
part-cheerleader in a supercharged
revivalist atmosphere. Soloists seemed
to pop up from every corner, blending
Dixieland with bluegrass, country, and
Cajun strains. The musical fluency
of the 17-piece crossover band and
Springsteen’s vitality made the ideal
combination for an unforgettable concert
album. Unfortunately, Live in Dublin isn’t
that set.
Recorded at The Point in Dublin on
November 17, 18, and 19, 2006, it’s a
by-the-numbers account of concerts
that are missing the vision and energy
of that evening in the Hollywood Hills.
Nearly two hours in length, Live In Dublin
incorporates Seeger Sessions tunes with new
takes on Springsteen’s own classics.
The Absolute Sound September 2007 125
Rock
Of these, most notable are a trio of
Nebraska titles (“Atlantic City,” “Highway
Patrolman,” “Open All Night”) as well
as the Devils and Dust tune “Long Time
Comin’.” But no matter how its songs
are strung together, the two-disc package
lacks that essential audience connection—
a “live” and unpredictable electricity.
High points include the somber
rendition of “When The Saints Come
Marching In” and elegiac “We Shall
Overcome.” And there are other
standouts like the ensemble-driven
“Further Up the Road” and soulful vocal
by guitarist Marc Anthony Thompson
during “Eyes on the Prize.” Mixed by
Bob Clearmountain and mastered by
Bob Ludwig, the sonics are quite good.
Thanks to modern technology (driven
partly by the DVD sales angle), concert
recordings have definitely progressed.
There’s a strong sense of image focus,
good extension and soundstaging, and
impressive dimensionality—aspects
that help draw listeners into the venue.
Simultaneously released on DVD
(including the high-definition Blu-ray
format), the visual version often makes
the stronger impression. Shot with nine
cameras, the DVD conveys more of the
atmosphere and camaraderie.
Nonetheless, Live in Dublin seems a
victim of an end-of-tour letdown. That
it was filmed outside of the U.S. also
probably contributed to the slightly
muted atmosphere. Well known, too,
is that the tour’s low-key and folksy
nature occasionally caused Springsteen
to struggle to fill the seats. Perhaps this
explains the strictly barebones approach
the producers took toward compiling the
DVD, which is devoid of bonus material,
interviews, and any sort of “making
of ” documentary. To its advantage, the
DVD does have an uncompressed PCM
stereo mix that easily gives it the upper
hand on the CD. Yet it adds little to what
has already been better said on The Seeger
Sessions, meaning Live In Dublin is best left
for die-hard Springsteen completists. Neil
Gader
Further Listening: Bruce Springsteen:
The Seeger Sessions; Tom Petty: Wild-
flowers
126 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Paul McCartney:
Memory Almost
Full.
David Kahne, producer. Hear Music/
MPL 30348.
I felt like a baby-boomer cliché. Walking
into Starbucks. Handing the dreadlocked
clerk Paul McCartney’s latest. She gives
me my change, smiles, and says, “Enjoy
it.” But, hey, at least I didn’t have to suffer
a Frappuccino.
The Starbucks/Hear Music hype aside,
what is McCartney’s latest like? For better
and worse, it’s a record in which the man
does what he’s best at—spinning short,
cheery pop tunes with simplistic lyrics,
one after the other. Songs like “Dance
Tonight,” “See You Sunshine,” “Vintage
Clothes,” and “Nod Your Head” are
almost juvenile in their innocence, and
catchy as hell. He rocks on a few numbers,
whistles, gets nostalgic, and seems to
have had a lot of fun making the record.
But ultimately, the set is over-produced
(too many needless backup vocals and
noodling) and largely forgettable.
Musical merits aside (fans won’t be
disappointed), the sonics on Memory
Almost Full are quite disappointing. As
he did with his superb self-titled solo
launch, McCartney plays most of the
instruments here. Given the man’s
excellent musicianship, that’s good for the
songs but bad for the sound. Instruments
sound largely disconnected from each
other, and the record’s overall feel is thin
and highly processed. Wayne Garcia
Further Listening: Paul McCartney:
McCartney; John Lennon: Plastic Ono
Band
Frankie Valli & the
4 Seasons: Jersey
Beat: The Music Of Frankie
Valli & the 4 Seasons.
Valli, Bob Crewe, Bob Gaudio, et al.,
producers. Rhino 74852 (three CDs,
one DVD).
God bless Frankie Valli. Emerging with
his fellow Jersey boys as the 4 Seasons
at a time when rock ’n roll hitmakers
had a half-life of two minutes after
their first hit faded, Valli, with his aging
but effective multi-octave voice, is still
packing casino venues and concert halls.
He even merited a few cameos on “The
Sopranos” and has been spoken of rev-
erentially by Tony and his fellow Jersey
boys. So, yes, God bless Frankie Valli.
But not necessarily this new four-disc
collection. Say what? Newcomers to the
Valli/Seasons legend aside, anyone who
was sentient during the Seasons’ heyday—
beginning in 1962 with the chart-topping
“Sherry” and winding down in 1968 with
the Top 30 reworking of the Shirelles’
“Will You Love Me Tomorrow”—will
puzzle over nearly two discs worth of
Valli solo material, unsuccessful singles
(as well as the perplexing absence of a
truly great Seasons side, “Connie-O,” the

B-side of “Sherry,” and the continuing
disregard of the group’s lone entry into
the surf-music field, “No Surfing Today,”
the B-side of “Dawn”) and noble but
failed experiments on the order of 1969’s
“Genuine Imitation Life” from the Bob
Gaudio-conceived concept album, Genuine
Imitation Life Gazette, a stab at relevancy
that the Seasons needn’t have attempted.
After all, Gaudio and co-producer and
fellow resident genius Bob Crewe (as well
as the savvy, literate songwriter/producer
Sandy Linzer) were crafting character-
driven portraits in class consciousness
and Emersonian self-reliance from the
time of 1963’s “Walk Like a Man,” the
first but hardly the last Seasons’ song to
speak directly to its young male audience’s
conflicted emotions regarding gender
politics.
Which is not to suggest that most of
Disc 2 and all of Disc 3 are wastes of
time. Good records ensued even after the
original group had been reduced to Valli
alone, accompanied by an ever-changing
cast of sidemen through 1982, the final
year represented in this overview. But
good records are one thing; monumental,
generation-defining, sonically unsurpassed
records are quite another, and that’s what
the Seasons of ’62-’68 were all about. Not
so other incarnations. Even the DVD is
skewed to Valli’s solo performances and
videos of later Seasons lineups.
First cut to last, the sound is magnifi-
cent, because this group never worked
with a less-than-stellar production team.
During the Crewe/Gaudio years, the fruits
of the producers’ labors were as good as
or better than anything else on this shore
or others, a fact evident from the depth
of the sonics on the original vinyl releases,
much less those of the digital remasters.
More subtle than Spector, as sensitive and
vibrant as Brian Wilson, less ambitious
but nearly as whimsical as George Martin,
the enduring moments here—most on
Disc 1—exist on some exalted plane
inaccessible to mere mortals, where
simplicity and complexity are at once in
play. Explore the Further Listening titles
for a short course that packs a greater
wallop than this opus. DM
Further Listening: Frankie Valli and The
4 Seasons: Anthology; Frankie Valli and
The 4 Seasons: Rarities, Volume 1 and 2
Genesis: Genesis,
1976-1982.
Genesis, producers. Rhino 125436 (six
CDs, six DVDs).
This monumental 12-disc box set from
the band that Rolling Stone once called the
“Rodney Dangerfields of Rock” should
get plenty of respect from diehard fans
and completists.
The first of three planned career
retrospectives, Genesis, 1976-1982 delves
into the group’s post-Peter Gabriel years.
Each of the five two-disc Collector’s
Edition entries of the five albums
contained within includes a remastered
CD and 24-bit/96k DVD-A (in both
5.1 Dolby Digital and DTS Surround
remixes), videos, and assorted archival
material. Also included is a two-CD
set of rarities culled from B-sides and
the EPs Spot the Pigeon and 3X3. Ace
drummer and singer Phil Collins anchors
the parade. He’s teamed up with Tony
Banks (keyboards, guitar, vocals), Mike
Rutherford (guitars and bass), and Steve
Hackett (bass and guitars), who left the
band in 1978.
Chronologically, the set starts with the
sublime prog-rock masterwork Trick of the
Tail and sails through Wind & Wuthering,
…And Then There Were Three, and Duke
before concluding with the genre-
jumping and hook-heavy pop reinvention
ABACAB, which featured Earth, Wind
& Fire’s simmering Phoenix Horns
section. Musically, this is a vast reservoir
of English eccentricity, unapologetic art
rock, and precious pop that ranges from
storybook tales to synth-driven dance
singles.
And it’s a perfect candidate for
surround-sound treatment. Engineer
Rock
Nick Davis, working closely with Banks,
painstakingly supervised the four-year
project at The Farm in Surrey, the English
studio that the band built for ABACAB
and the site of its subsequent recording
sessions. Davis used original multi-track
tapes on each remix with the exception
of Mike Rutherford’s composition “Say
It’s Alright, Joe” from And Then There
Were Three. The results?
Impressive. The overhauled CDs
possess a warmth, clarity, and sonic punch
that’s all their own, but the surround-
sound remixes elevate to a new level the
evocative synth bass, rumbling drum
rolls, and shimmering keyboard melodies
on such tracks as “Robbery, Assault and
Battery” from Trick of the Tail. Just listen
to the biting title track from ABACAB,
with its distinctive pulsing instrumental
finale on which Collins’ cymbal work
sparkles above roiling synthesizers and
Rutherford’s searing guitar solo shines.
Or check out the way the extra channels
enhance the minimal percussion and
keyboard sounds of “Man on the Corner”
while still blending the song’s textured
layers. Liner notes writer Michael Watts
states that Davis found Collins’ trademark
’80s drum sound outdated, but did not
alter it. And that’s a good thing, since
Collins’ percussion—synth-generated
hand claps and all—gives this latter work
its signature sound.
A bulk of the 13 bonus tracks—except
“Match of the Day” and “Virgil and
Me”—are available elsewhere, as are
a majority of the video clips. Yet each
disc features new interviews with band
members that offer insights into the
original studio sessions. The only fault is
the decision to not follow suit with the UK
version of this collection, which features
hybrid SACD and DVD-A versions. It
would have made for a crowning touch.
Greg Cahill
Further Listening: Alan Parsons Project:
I Robot; Emerson, Lake and Palmer:
Tarkus
The Absolute Sound September 2007 129
Rock
Grateful Dead:
Three From the
Vault.
Grateful Dead, producers. Rhino
162812 (two CDs).
The tapes that comprise Three From the
Vault were readied for mastering some 15
years ago, intended to follow the first two
volumes of the Grateful Dead’s archival
releases. Due to myriad factors, the series
got put on ice. Until now. In the interim,
the Dead issued 53 live albums—many
under the Dick’s Picks banner. Yet the
initial Vault titles remain harbingers that
revolutionized the authorized delivery
and release of fan-favorite concerts.
Recorded at Port Chester’s Capitol
Theatre on February 19, 1971, this breezy
set captures the Dead in transition.
Mickey Hart’s recent departure left Bill
Kreutzmann as the sole percussionist.
By necessity, the group stripped down
its arrangements. And the sextet was in
premiere mode. Five tracks here represent
second-ever performances; two songs
make their debuts.
Given the abundance of fresh ideas
and Hart’s absence, the band responds
with a more fluid, spacious, and agile
dynamic. An in-progress “Greatest Story
Ever Told” moves faster than developed
versions; “Playing in the Band” possesses
a fly-by-the-seat-of-pants feel missing
from autopilot renditions of later years.
And the HDCD-encoded sound is first-
rate, breathing with tonal purity and solid
imaging that brings the group’s of-the-era
vintage amplification out of the storage
and into living rooms. BG
Further Listening: Grateful Dead: One
From the Vault; Jerry Garcia Band:
Live
130 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Various Artists:
Bokoor Beats.
John Collins, producer. Otrabanda 08.
Few Westerners are better steeped in
Ghanaian music than British émigré John
Collins, an academic and journalistic
chronicler of the West African scene,
and a musician/producer who was active
there for nearly four decades. His large
piece Bokoor Band (1971–’79) is the
focus of this 12-song collection, with
Blekete & the Big Beats (recorded in ’92)
and the Mangwana Stars, T.O. Jazz, and
Oyikwan Internationals (all tracked in
’86) providing one selection each.
Electric guitars and bass, percussion,
and chant-like male and female vocals
and choruses give jittery energy to
the fluid highlife and Afro-rock, with
James Brown as an obvious influence.
Collins’ harmonica links the sound to
Stevie Wonder and War, and certain
grooves, keyboard colors, and horns
recall the Bar-Kays and Hugh Masekela,
further compressing the Transatlantic
connection.
The remastering of the original tapes
imparted roundness, smoothness, and
clear presence to what was probably a
garage-band sound. (Collins had set up his
Bokoor Studio as a low-budget haven for
regional bands.) Some sonic imbalances
persist—in spatial relationships and
relative timbres—but the sound is
surprisingly fresh and music delightfully
accessible, whether sung in indigenous
dialects or, occasionally, English.
Derk Richardson
Further Listening: Various Artists:
The Guitar and Gun; Various Artists:
Electric Highlife
Tomahawk:
Anonymous.
Mike Patton, producer. Ipecac 89.
While on tour at the turn of the century,
guitarist Duane Denison kept frequenting
Indian reservations. Figuring they’d be
tapped into a spiritual kinetic, the former
Jesus Lizard member grew curious about
what kinds of music Native American
bands were playing. But upon hearing that
new-agey blues and country dominated
the scene, a disappointed Denison
immersed himself in researching older
forms, ultimately turning up early 20th
century books filled with Native songs.
Save for “Long, Long Weary Day,”
the 13 tracks that make up Tomahawk’s
Anonymous are interpretations of
uncredited tunes Denison’s studies
unearthed. With names such as “Mescal
Rite I” and “Antelope Ceremony,”
Tomahawk preserved the original song
titles while adding its own sonic imprint.
Anchored by ubiquitous experimental-
ist Mike Patton, the trio (which also counts
Battles drummer John Stanier among its
ranks) sounds restrained in comparison
to previous efforts. This is a positive,
especially given that Patton’s Man-of-a-
Thousand-Voices tongue language is made
for these war chants, ghost songs, and sun
dances. Denison and Stanier respond in
kind with hand percussion, marching
rhythms, and spooked riffs, which are
abetted by rain, wind, and whistling
samples. And while the production—
boasting better-than-average depth, air
around notes, and palpable textures—
could be punchier, the spaciousness suits
the respectful intentions. BG
Further Listening: Frank Zappa: Hot
Rats; Boredoms: Seadrum
Rock
Queens of the
Stone Age: Era
Vulgaris.
Chris Goss and Joshua Homme,
producers. Interscope 9039.
On “Feel Good Hit of the Summer,” the
opening track from the Queens’ 2000
breakout album Rated R, frontman Josh
Homme lays out a litany of backstage
drugs: “Nicotine, valium, vicodin,
marijuana, ecstasy, and alcohol...”
Seven years on, the party has mellowed
somewhat, Homme remarking that “there
ain’t even no good bad drugs” on “Misfit
Love.” Era Vulgaris is the Queens’ second
album since the departure of bassist Nick
Oliveri, and Homme, for one, still sounds
stung by the loss. “I’m a mess, I guess,”
he croons on “Turnin’ on the Screw.”
The moody lullaby “Into the Hollow” is
typical of the grungier approach, spiralling
slowly down the rabbit hole. “Make It Wit
Chu,” a sensual booty call featuring ex-
Screaming Trees singer Mark Lanegan, is
a Motown ballad by way of the Queens’
sun-scorched Palm Desert hometown.
“Sick, Sick, Sick” opens things up, the
group unleashing a high-speed chase of
crunchy riffs and distorted solos.
Sonically, the album is a mixed bag.
The low end is underrepresented, but the
guitar tones remain fantastic throughout.
Whether howling through blood-hungry
solos on “Run, Pig, Run” or mimicking
a drill bit on “3’s & 7’s,” Homme’s six-
string never sounds less than stellar. AD
Further Listening: Kyuss: Wretch;
Screaming Trees: Sweet Oblivion
132 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Pixies: Surfer Rosa.
Steve Albini, producer.
Hybrid stereo SACD. Mobile Fidelity
2032.
A foundation upon which the alt-rock
explosion was built, the Pixies’ Surfer
Rosa sounded like nothing else upon its
original release in 1988. Teaming with
bizarre lyrics, boy-girl singing, equal
amounts of harsh punk and soothing pop,
jigsaw riffs, should-we-stay-or-should-
we-go tempo shifts, lighthearted humor,
and carbonated melodies, the Boston
foursome’s full-length debut transformed
the musical landscape—even if the
resultant revolution took place four years
later. And while Gil Norton famously
helmed Doolittle, the slightly more brilliant
follow-up, Surfer Rosa had Steve Albini in
its corner. The iconic producer captured
an abrasiveness, rawness, and massiveness
that spoke to the songs’ clamor. Now,
listeners can finally hear it all.
Mobile Fidelity’s new hybrid two-
channel SACD is remastered from first-
generation analog master tapes. And
does it ever show. The heaviness and
hugeness of the room-reverberating
drumbeat that begins the album-opening
“Bone Machine” epitomizes the record’s
forward impact, visceral punch, grinding
crunch, and dynamic headroom. Rather
than cluttering the mix with an avalanche
of effects, Albini left space without
sacrificing live detail or volatile oomph,
shown to great effect on “Broken Face,”
“Gigantic” (there’s a piano—who knew?),
and haunting “Where Is My Mind?,”
which opens into a sonic canyon that
swallows the listener whole. BG
Further Listening: Nirvana: In Utero;
Brise-Glase: When In Venitas
(Hot Wax)
The White Stripes:
Icky Thump.
Jack White III, producer. Third Man/
Warner Bros. 162940 (two LPs; also
available on CD).
Jack White has always seemed overly
concerned with his own mythology. He
still clings to the perception that he and
drummer Meg White are brother-sister,
though it has long since been established
that they are former husband-and-wife.
He also has an obsession with numerology,
specifically the number three: the White
Stripes always dress in the same three
colors (red, white and black) and most
songs feature three elements (guitar,
drums, and vocals).
Icky Thump, the Stripes’ sixth album
and first recorded in a modern studio
(Blackbird in Nashville), sounds
less concerned with continuing this
mythology than pondering its effects.
No less than three (there’s that number
again) tracks mention lies. “And if you’re
testing god/And lying to his face/You’re
gonna catch hell,” howls White on “Catch
Hell Blues.” On “Little Cream Soda,” a
metallic mash-up of rhino-charge guitar
and bloodthirsty solos, White complains
how his mind is filled with rubber tires,
forest fires, and “whether I’m a liar.” The
spooky “I’m Slowly Turning Into You”
argues in favor of the frontman keeping
his “little shell intact,” his folklorish
background providing protection against
modern intrusions.
Recorded over a three-week period—
the Stripes longest sessions to-date—Icky
Thump is a sonic monster. It is easily the
Stripes’ most professional-sounding
record, with minimal echo and a cool
dynamic. Guitar tones are fantastic
Rock (Hot Wax)
throughout, whether White is high-
stepping through “Little Cream Soda” or
laying down chunky riffs on “300 M.P.H.
Torrential Outpour Blues.” Meg, who still
plays the drums with the happy-go-lucky
energy of an overactive kindergartner,
has never laid down beats that sound
this outsized. Her drumming on “Bone
Broke” mimics a herd of cattle tumbling
one by one down a staircase. The
production really shines on the double-
LP, with solid (if not spectacular) imaging
and a wide soundstage that gives White
plenty of room to break into spiky solos.
The duo also adds a few welcome
wrinkles to its sound. A cover of Patti
Paige’s “Conquest” finds White locked
in a duel with trumpeter Regulo Aldama,
the two trading blows like prizefighters
before the final bell. The mini-suite of
“Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn” and
“St. Andrew (This Battle Is in the Air)”
nods to the pair’s Scottish background,
mournful bagpipes drifting over some
gnarled, ancient moor on the former.
Not everything works. Despite its
smart, Lou Dobbs-baiting lyrics (“White
America, what?/Nothing better to do?/
Why don’t you kick yourself out/You’re
an immigrant, too”), the title track never
coalesces. The acoustic closer “Effect
and Cause” is a sleepy parting shot for an
album so full of gut-punching riffs.
Better is the heartbroken (and
heartbreaking) “A Martyr For My Love
For You,” where White professes his
yearning over measured fingerpicking,
walking away from his paramour as the
guitars build to a pachyderm stomp.
The warped “Catch Hell Blues” nods to
the group’s earlier take on Son House’s
“Death Letter,” White bending out
molten acoustic notes. And on “Rag and
Bone” Jack and Meg compare themselves
to junk collectors, gathering everything
from toilet seats to microphones. It’s
an appropriate image: Icky Thump is the
sound of the Stripes cleaning out their
musical closet. AD
Further Listening: Led Zeppelin: III;
The White Stripes: White Blood Cells
134 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Shellac:
Excellent Italian
Greyhound.
Shellac, producers. Touch & Go 303
(LP; also available on CD).
“Can you hear me now?,” shrieks
guitarist/howler monkey Steve Albini on
the opening salvo from Shellac’s fourth
album, and its first since 2000. Frankly,
with the ruckus that Albini, bassist Bob
Weston, and drummer Todd Trainer raise,
it’s impossible not to.
The trio kicks things off with “The
End of Radio,” an elaborate in-joke about
the dying commercial radio format. The
loose song structure sets the template
for the album—insomuch that there is
no template. On barnburners like “Paco”
and “Be Prepared,” guitars scratch and
claw like jungle animals, drums wander
in and out of the mix like disoriented
tourists, and basslines bound in before
disappearing in the distance. But nowhere
do things get stranger than on “Genuine
Lulabelle,” a patience-testing marriage
of cartoon voices, a woman speaking
Spanish, and a woozy Albini repeating,
“C’mon, let’s get the party started.”
While impressive on CD, the sonics
explode on the gorgeously packaged LP—
no surprise given Albini’s lifelong love of
analog. And Shellac, more than almost
any band recording today, deserves to be
heard in all its vinyl glory. With its wide
soundstage, above-average imaging, and
sharply recorded guitars (dig that intro to
“Spoke”), Excellent Italian Greyhound is no
exception. AD
Further Listening: Big Black: Atomizer;
Chavez: Better Days Will Haunt You
Wilco: Sky Blue
Sky.
Wilco, producers. Nonesuch 131388
(two 180-gram LPs; includes CD of
compete album).
Considering that Wilco has its most
experimental lineup to date, Sky Blue Sky
is a surprisingly straightforward album.
Gone are the quirky noises, adventurous
soundscapes, abstract lyrics, and daring
leaps that made the band’s last three
records so great. In their place are lilting
ballads and gentle country-, sixties-, and
Motown-flavored rockers. The few times
the group cuts loose only underscore the
fact that, maybe, things are just a little too
laidback here.
Recorded on two-inch open-reel tape
at Wilco’s Chicago loft, mastered by
Stan Ricker, and pressed at RTI, Sky
Blue Sky is a terrific-sounding set. Songs
were captured as played in real time, as
were Jeff Tweedy’s vocals. The results
are warm, relaxed, and remarkably of
a piece. Tweedy’s voice is very natural;
John Stiratt’s beautiful bass guitar work
is notably clean, nimble, and articulate;
Glenn Kotche’s drum kit has excellent
texture and solidity; Nels Cline’s Fender
Jazzmaster possesses lovely timbral
complexity and sweetness of tone; and
Mikael Jorgenson and Pat Sansone’s organ
and piano work are equally impressive
sounding.
Its beautiful sonics aside, Sky Blue Sky
is solid and enjoyable, but not what Wilco
is fully capable of producing. WG
Further Listening: Wilco: Yankee Hotel
Foxtrot; Wilco: a ghost is born
Rock (Hot Wax)
Dungen: Tio Bitar.
Gustav Ejstes, producer.
Kemado 053 (LP; also available on
CD).
Gustav Ejstes, the creative force behind
Sweden’s Dungen, seems like a holdover
from another era—a shaman bent on
recording mind-warping psychedelia that
wouldn’t sound out of place emanating
from San Francisco’s Fillmore district in
the mid-1960s.
Like the band’s stateside breakthrough,
Ta Det Lugnt, Tio Bitar is overflowing with
swirling guitars, airy flute, and basslines
that rumble like distant trains. Singing in
his native Swedish, Ejstes floats through
this ether as effortlessly as a thick cloud
of pot smoke. “Mon Amour” is the
album’s centerpiece, an eight-minute-plus
epic built around Godzilla-sized drums,
unexpected tempo shifts, and feedback-
heavy guitars. “Familj” is equally intricate,
Ejstes cutting elaborate crop circles with
his six-string. Even when the group pulls
back, as it does on the instrumental “C
Visar Vägen,” the results are surprising,
the song arriving as naturally as springtime
at the tail end of winter.
The sonics on the LP are above
average, though the vocals frequently
(and purposely, one would expect) sound
like they were recorded amidst a thick
haze. Ejstes makes up for it with a wide
soundstage that allows listeners to lose
themselves in the recording, weaving in
and out of the dense compositions like
an explorer clawing his way through some
overgrown mystical woodland. AD
Further Listening: Deep Purple:
Machine Head; Comets on Fire: Avatar
136 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
The Byrds:
Sweetheart of
the Rodeo.
Gary Usher, producer. Sundazed/
Columbia 5215 (LP).
By 1968, the only original remaining
members of the Byrds were guitarist
Roger McGuinn and bassist Chris
Hillman. Kevin Kelley filled Michael
Clarke’s drum seat, and a guy named
Gram Parsons from the International
Submarine band took over the guitar
and vocal slot vacated by David Crosby.
Sweetheart of the Rodeo was the only record
that Parsons made as a Byrd, and it’s a
country-rock classic.
Aided by a few superb session players,
the Byrds cover a pair of Dylan songs
(“You Ain’t Going Nowhere” and
“Nothing Was Delivered”), Woody
Guthrie’s “Pretty Boy Floyd,” as well
as songs by the Louvin Brothers and
Merle Haggard. The highlights, though,
are Parsons’ “One Hundred Years from
Now” and “Hickory Wind,” which he
penned about his childhood in South
Carolina.
Sonically, this is essentially a dual-
mono job with an okay balance. But
the recording is also dynamically limited
and weak on the bottom end. I didn’t
have an original Columbia pressing for
comparison, but I’m concerned that
Sundazed’s standards have slipped. While
$16.98 is a great price, Sundazed is no
longer utilizing 180-gram vinyl. Instead,
the company is pressing on a standard
thickness it’s calling “High Definition
Vinyl.” Hmm… WG
Further Listening: Gram Parsons:
Grievous Angel; Bob Dylan: Nashville
Skyline
(DVD-A)
Ernest Ranglin:
Order of Distinc-
tion.
AIX 83047.
For anyone devoted to Jamaican music,
this release is essential. Ernest Ranglin,
now 75, was there at the birth of the ska
style in the late 1950s. Order of Distinction,
a reference to the honor he received from
the Jamaican government more than
30 years ago, reminds us of Ranglin’s
considerable abilities as a jazz player.
Backed by a band featuring his long-
time friend and collaborator, pianist
Monty Alexander, Ranglin’s casual, fluid
virtuosity is evident on every selection.
Most are instrumentals, though there
are a few vocals, including a rendition
of the song that was the first worldwide
Jamaican hit, “My Boy Lollipop,” originally
recorded in 1964 by Millie Small but sung
delightfully here by Alena Davis.
As is typical of AIX, there are a dizzying
variety of sound and visual options. We
get a pair of two-sided discs, the first
containing two DVD-Video versions
(interactive and linear) of performances
of the 16 songs plus a treasure trove of
additional content, including a 40-minute
documentary. The second disc holds a
standard CD program and a DVD-Audio
5.1 MLP stage mix that places listeners in
the middle of the musicians with tonally
luxurient, naturally immediate sound
that communicates the in-the-moment
dynamic of the sessions. Andrew Quint
Further Listening: Ernest Ranglin: In
search of the Lost Riddim; The Harder
They Come (DVD)

Recording
of the Issue
S.S. Wesley:
Anthems (including
Let us lift up our heart and
The Wilderness).
James McVinnie, organ; Choir of
Clare College, Cambridge, Christo-
pher Robinson, director. John Rutter,
producer. Naxos 8.570318.
S.S. Wesley: Organ
Works.
James McVinnie, organ. John Rutter,
producer and engineer. Naxos
8.570410.
As Samuel Sebastian Wesley is not
a household name, let us first take a
quick look at the composer’s family
tree. His great-uncle, the Anglican
clergyman John Wesley, was the founder
of Methodism and a bold musical
reformer. His grandfather Charles, John’s
younger brother, was one of the greatest
hymnodists England has ever produced.
His father, Samuel Wesley (1766-1837),
dubbed “the English Mozart” by William
Boyce, became one of the most important
figures in English musical life in the
early 19th century—violinist, conductor,
composer, a founding member of the
Royal Academy of Music, and Britain’s
first organ recitalist. In this latter capacity
he championed the works of J.S. Bach,
showing his further devotion by producing
an edition of The Well-Tempered Clavier and
giving his illegitimate son and namesake
Samuel, born in 1810, the middle name
Sebastian.
Music Sonics Extraordinary
Like his father, young Samuel Sebastian
Wesley revealed his talent early, quickly
establishing himself as an organist of the
first rank—among English organists of
the day probably the best—and embarking
on a long career as cathedral organist that
would include appointments at Hereford,
Exeter, Winchester, and Gloucester. As a
composer he found his niche writing music
for the Anglican service. The works he
produced over more than 40 years, from
the 1830s to the 1870s, stood out against
the general drabness of that era’s church
music to such an extent that Wesley can
be considered, to quote the New Grove,
“the greatest composer in the English
cathedral tradition between Purcell and
Stanford.” These new discs from Naxos
amply support that assessment.
The collection of anthems offers a core
sample of Wesley’s best work. The writing
is earnest, straightforward, and fairly
conventional, but there are moments of
real beauty and frequent adumbrations of
greater talents to come such as Howells,
Elgar, Bax, and Finzi. Fittingly, the
music is sung with a mid-19th-century,
i.e. Victorian, sensibility—not overly
emotive or dramatic, but purposeful, and
with considerable feeling for the words.
Now and then the women sound a little
“white,” often the case with English
groups, but the men are satisfyingly
robust. The coup here is the organ: an
absolutely perfect period instrument by
Henry Willis, installed at the Church of
St. Michael and All Angels, Tenbury, in
Excellent Good
Music
Classical
1873. It lends its rich timbre and solid
pedal tones to a well-nigh ideal realization
of these pieces.
The same organ is heard on the recital
disc, again played by James McVinnie.
The program opens with the Introduction
and Fugue in C sharp minor—a severe,
glowering work, downright ominous
in tone, its counterpoint rigorously
fashioned—and concludes with the
bracing, proclamatory Choral Song, in
which the influence of Bach is readily
apparent. Much of what comes in
between is quiet and contemplative, and
very lovely. The spirit of Mendelssohn
(the greatest organist of his day, with an
especially starry reputation in England)
hovers close. Vide, the lilting figuration
of the Andante in F, which builds
magnificently to a full-voiced climax
Wesley can be
considered, to quote
the New Grove, “the
greatest composer in
the English cathedral
tradition between
Purcell and Stanford.”
before ending as gently as it began.
The multi-talented John Rutter, who
produced both discs, clearly has golden
ears. The balance between choir and organ
is exactly right in the anthems, the sound
of both beautifully “placed” within the
venue—live, immediate, precisely imaged.
And yes, the organ has all the weight one
could wish for. One hears into its sonority
with absolute ease. Ted Libbey
Further Listening: Rutter: Requiem
(Brown); Willan: Organ Works (Wedd)
Fair Poor
The Absolute Sound September 2007 139
Classical
Silvestrov:
Symphony No. 6.
SWR Stuttgart Radio Symphony
Orchestra, Andrey Boreyko,
conductor. Dietmar Wolf, producer;
Peter Braun, engineer. ECM 1935.
The spirit of Mahler hovers over
Ukrainian composer’s Valentin
Silvestrov’s Sixth Symphony. It’s there
in the first massive, solemn chord that
opens the work and surfaces with slightly
altered quotes from the Adagietto
of Mahler’s Fifth in the long central
movement, which occupies almost half
of the work.
Such direct and indirect references—
like half-remembered melodies and
memories—are typical of Silvestrov’s
style. Big blocks of sound, repeated
and altered with variations in tempo,
dynamics, color, and rhythm, are built on
a strong bass foundation and punctuated
with shining brass and percussion
climaxes. Harp arpeggios strengthen
the mood of looking back at a bygone
age, and sharp, often violent contrasts
suggest the experiences of a 20th century
that shattered an innocent era. It’s a style
that makes Silvestrov one of our most
interesting composers, his music full of
surprising twists and turns but always
deeply personal and grounded in a
resonant world-view.
Boreyko leads the work with a sure
hand, and the orchestra is comfortable
with Silvestrov’s questing music. The
sonics capture the vital bass foundations
and music’s wide dynamics and colors.
Dan Davis
Further Listening: Silvestrov: Postludium;
Silvestrov: Symphony No. 5
140 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Hanson: Merry
Mount.
Soloists. Seattle Symphony/Chorale;
Northwest Boychoir; Seattle Girls’
Choir; Gerard Schwarz, conductor.
Adam Stern, producer; Al Swanson,
engineer. Naxos 8.669012-13 (two
CDs).
Following the first performance of
Howard Hanson’s Merry Mount at the
Metropolitan Opera in 1934, the artists
received over 50 curtain calls, and there
were eight additional MET performances
that season. But the work was never
revived in New York and, despite the
popularity of the composer’s less-than-
20-minute suite of music from the opera
on LP and CD, there hasn’t been a modern
recording of the complete score until this
one, led by Hanson specialist Gerard
Schwarz. This is surprising, as the work is
a dramatic and musical juggernaut.
Merry Mount is based on a Nathanial
Hawthorne story concerning the discord
between dour, self-righteous Puritans
and entrepreneurial, pleasure-seeking
English Cavaliers in early 17th century
New England. The central character is
the conflicted Wrestling Bradford, the
Pilgrims’ stern religious leader. Bradford
passes judgment on all manner of
sinfulness (whoring, blasphemy, Indian
sorcery) in the first of the opera’s three
acts but finds himself lustfully consumed
with one of the Cavalier women, Lady
Marigold Sandys, who is engaged to Sir
Gower Lackland. In Act II, the Puritans
ambush the Cavaliers at their extravagantly
festive maypole celebration and Bradford
abducts Lady Marigold, allegedly to
“wrestle with her soul” but clearly with
other things in mind. Merry Mount’s high
point is Act II’s final scene, “Bradford’s
Dream: The Hellish Rendezvous,” in
which the minister imagines an exotic
and vividly terrifying netherworld where
he ultimately sells his soul and accepts
the mark of Satan on his forehead. In the
final act, amidst a scene of devastation,
we learn that Bradford’s conversion was
real.
This is a large-scale composition
in every way with full-blooded, lyrical
vocal lines, lots of choral writing for
the many crowd scenes, and brilliant
orchestrations. The composer’s harmonic
syntax was conservative, of course, but
there’s no denying that Hanson knew
what he was doing within the stylistic
boundaries he had set for himself. Those
who enjoy Hanson’s symphonies and
other orchestral works will savor several
extended instrumental passages, such
as in “Bradford’s Dream.” The Seattle
Symphony plays magnificently and the
principal singers, while not household
names, are well suited to their roles, notably
baritone Richard Zeller (Bradford),
soprano Lauren Flanigan (Marigold), and
Walter MacNeil (Gower).
This recording derives from two
concert performances at the Seattle
Center Opera House in October of 1996.
The presentation of the orchestra isn’t
especially dimensional, and you must be
sure to turn the gain up sufficiently to
assure that Hanson’s evocative, colorful
music makes its full impact. Balances
between stage and pit are good. There is
no libretto provided (and Naxos doesn’t
offer one on-line, as it often does with
opera releases), but there is a very detailed
plot synopsis to follow in the liner
notes, and most of the English texts are
intelligible. This gem of the still largely
unrecorded American operatic repertoire
shouldn’t be missed. Andrew Quint
Further Listening: Hanson: Symphonies 1 &
2 (Hanson [SACD]); Hanson: The Mystic
Trumpeter (Schwarz)
Classical
Gruber: Franken-
stein!!; Dancing in
the Dark.
BBC Philharmonic, H. K. Gruber,
conductor and chansonnier. Brian
Pidgeon, producer; Stephen Rinker,
engineer. Chandos 10404.
Turn-of-the-century Vienna was at
once febrile, inventive, vital, decadent,
and world-weary, giving the world
Mahler, the Second Viennese School,
Wittgenstein, Freud—and Hitler. One
of its more recent gifts is Heinz Karl
Gruber, born in 1943 and thoroughly
schooled in German musical tradition.
But Gruber is a subversive, delighting in
the anarchic and aberrant, and displayed
this trait early on by perpetrating the
most flagrant outrage possible for a
musician of his generation: writing tonal
music. Worse, following the example of
Brecht and Weill, he battens on popular
culture: cabaret, cocktail lounge, bossa
nova, nursery tunes, horror movies,
comic books—all yield opportunities
for droll parody, ironic extravagance,
satanic hilarity, nostalgic sadness.
The most beloved of Gruber’s
creations is Frankenstein!!, a half-hour-
long sequence of “children’s verses”
for orchestra and singer-reciter. The
1978 song-cycle sets infantile absurdist
mini-texts to catchy tunes and devilishly
clever instrumental accompaniments,
the entire witches’ concoction burbling
over with malicious glee.
Gruber’s performance (in English,
with lyrics included in the notes) is far
past flaming; there just aren’t words for
it. Listen to his hysterical exultation as
he croons, “Frankenstein is dancing with
the test-tube lady,” or his degeneration
142 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
into a paroxysm of demented sput-
terings, screechings, gurglings, and gag-
gings at the end of “A little monsterlet
is dancing round our house.” Then
there’s the “Rat Song,” a spooky little
aria with an insinuating melody in a
slowish shimmy rhythm, fluted out by a
chorus of toy whistles; it has a creepy,
infectious gaiety just right for Alice-in-
Wonderland nightmares. The finale is even
better, with an anthrophagic alien on
the prowl—“tender skins are what he’s
after, strung like toys across his rafter,”
while Frankenstein is out chasing “the
pretty, pretty little girls.” All this sadism
and depravity to the charming tootlings
and tinklings of kazoos, accordions,
bells and whistles, toy piano, and micro-
xylophones from within a delicately
transparent orchestral panoply. Chandos’
sonics are airy but dynamic and vividly
detailed, with a wide soundstage on which
Gruber’s many-voiced recitation comes
through with holographic immediacy and
yet is nicely interwoven into the intricate
instrumental fabric.
Frankenstein!! by no means exhausts
Gruber’s range. Dancing in the Dark, a
magniloquent 25-minute “concert piece”
from 2003, transfigures pre-war Central
European dance music as a turbulent
post-Mahlerian tone poem. The first half
climaxes in a grandiose, funereal foxtrot
that unexpectedly tapdances into oblivion,
while the violent conclusion prefigures
the coming cataclysm. The deep feelings
this lost world evokes in the composer,
a child of Vienna—ambivalence at
its hedonism, admiration of its grace,
despair at its pathologies, torment at its
unhealable scars—loom out of this music
like ghosts circling the undefended sleep
of reason. It is the function of art to give
these shadowy, insistent visitors form and
substance, so that they stand revealed for
our contemplation, wonder, terror, and
inconsolable sorrow. Mark Lehman
Further Listening: Schwertsik: Sinfonia;
Silvestrov: Symphony No. 5
As Steals the
Morn… Handel:
Arias & Scenes for Tenor.
Mark Padmore, tenor; The English
Concert, Andrew Manze, conductor.
Robina G. Young, producer; Brad
Michael, engineer. Harmonia Mundi
907422.
Mark Padmore’s reputation and
discography lead to high expectations
of his Handel tenor arias disc, especially
since he’s accompanied by the English
Concert led by Andrew Manze. Alas, those
expectations are only briefly fulfilled,
leaving a residue of disappointment.
Nothing’s amiss in the first track, the
rarely heard “Enjoy the sweet Elysian
grove,” a fragment from incidental music
for Alceste. But in “Where’ere you walk”
from Semele, Padmore exhibits a slight
vocal tremor that recurs in several other
numbers, along with a shortage of vocal
color, a touch of crooning, lapses into
unsupported notes that pop out of the
vocal line, and a sluggish tempo. Three
selections from Samson feature rich string
tone from the ECO and impeccable
diction from Padmore. But the latter is
overparted as the warrior king, lacking
the tonal variety to deliver the emotional
power of Samson’s “Total Eclipse.”
The plus side includes Padmore’s
fluent coloratura runs, but the whole is
too flawed and dull to sustain admiration.
The sound is fine, with lifelike orchestra,
and just enough air to reflect the venue, a
Hampstead church. DD
Further Listening: Handel: Arias (Lewis);
Handel: Arias & Scenes (Horne)
Classical
Stravinsky: The
Soldier’s Tale.
Columbia Chamber Ensemble, Igor
Stravinsky, conductor. John McClure,
original producer; Steven Epstein,
reissue producer. Sony 872876-76586.
Igor Stravinsky wasn’t always the
most effective interpreter of his own
music, but his 1961 recording of
the suite from L’histoire du soldat is
definitive. Forgotten, until recently, is
that Columbia brought Stravinsky back
into the studio six years later to tape all
the little bits and pieces of the score
that are required when A Soldier’s Tale
is performed as a dramatic work with
narration.
Sony has seamlessly integrated
these interludes and elements of
“underscoring”—details as minute as a
drum roll—into the well-known suite.
It then added Jeremy Irons’ reading of
Jeremy Sams’ new English translation
of the text, a performance that
demonstrates a remarkable alertness
to Stravinsky’s rhythms. Irons modifies
his voice to take on all of the different
characters in the story, including a
thoroughly degenerate-sounding Devil.
As a bonus, we get Robert Craft’s
composer-supervised recording of
Symphonies of Wind Instruments.
Thanks to the dry studio acoustic,
L’histoire is convincing as a real-time
performance: It wasn’t hard to record
and mix Irons so he sounds as though
he was there with Stravinsky and the
seven instrumentalists 45 years ago. AQ
Further Listening: Stravinsky: L’histoire
du soldat. (Järvi) (SACD); Stravinsky:
Symphony of Psalms (Boulez)
144 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Richard Strauss:
Elektra.
Soloists, Vienna Philharmonic, Georg
Solti, conductor. John Culshaw,
producer; Gordon Parry, James
Brown, engineers. Decca 4758231
(two CDs).
Johann Strauss:
Die Fledermaus.
Soloists, Vienna Philharmonic
Orchestra and State Opera Chorus,
Herbert von Karajan, conductor.
John Culshaw, Christopher Raeburn,
producers; Gordon Parry, James
Brown, engineers. Decca 4738319
(two CDs).
Decca’s recent remastered reissues
of classic opera recordings from the
1960s in its “The Originals” series has
generated understandable interest, as
many have been audiophile standbys
since their original Decca and London
releases on LP.
One such sonic blockbuster is Richard
Strauss’ Elektra, an orgy of brilliant
orchestral sound with Birgit Nilsson
in the title role of the hate-maddened
ancient Greek princess who dies of an
excess of fulfillment when her brother
murders her stepfather and mother.
This follow-up to the scandalous
success of Strauss’ Biblical shocker
Salome proved even more harrowing
to early 20th century audiences. Strauss
then retreated to the safer, less gory
climes of Der Rosenkavalier, also with a
libretto by Hugo von Hofmannsthal and
equally great, but more mellow, with a
more benevolent view of human nature.
Despite the critical importance of the
other female leads singing Elektra’s mom
and sister—Regina Resnik and Marie
Collier, respectively—it’s Elektra who is
never off-stage. And with Nilsson at her
very best, who’d want her in the wings?
Solti’s taut conducting and exploitations
of Strauss’ sound possibilities world help
make this an indispensable offering.
Nilsson returns in Die Fledermaus, albeit
only as part of the entertainment at
Prince Orlofsky’s gala along with a galaxy
of stars, each doing old favorites or party
turns, some wonderful, others campy.
Aside from the gala’s oddities, von Karajan
in 1960 conducts a fast-paced, highly
detailed performance, if slightly lacking
in elegance. The major roles are filled by
Vienna Staatsopera mainstays like tenor
Waldemar Kmentt as Eisenstein, soprano
Hilda Gueden as Rosalinde, and baritone
Walter Berry as Falke, with Erika Köth as
Rosalinde’s maid, Adele, who gets most
of the good lines. Köth, a chirpy soprano,
sails through the part’s showy coloratura.
The sound on both sets is typical of
John Culshaw productions, the singers
onstage to the rear of the forwardly
recorded orchestra. If you prefer a front-
row opera house perspective, you’ll love
it, but there is something artificial about
the resulting balances. However, there’s
a huge attractiveness in the pungency of
the brass in Elektra and dense sensuality
of the strings in Fledermaus, in addition to
an abundance of detail you rarely get in
live performances (or recorded ones) of
both. Dynamics, depth, and soundstage
are impressive. Culshaw’s trademark stage
movements add to the impression of a
“live” performance, as do the occasionally
overdone sound effects. DD
Further Listening: R. Strauss: Salome (Solti);
J. Strauss: Waltzes (Boskovsky)
Classical
Gershwin:
Concerto in F.
Rhapsody in Blue. Cuban
Overture.
Jon Nakamatsu, piano; Rochester
Philharmonic Orchestra, Jeff Tyzik,
conductor. Brad Michel, producer
and engineer. Hybrid multichannel
SACD. Harmonia Mundi 807441.
This is a mismatch between artist and
repertoire. Jon Nakamatsu, Gold Medal
winner of the 1997 Van Cliburn com-
petition, is a wonderfully lyrical player
with a pristine technique apt for Chopin
or Rachmaninoff. His hyper-clean runs
in the F major Concerto seem better
suited for Mozart than Gershwin, and
the second-movement cadenza lacks an
improvisatory feel. The finale is taken
at a reckless tempo, which allows the
pianist to show off his pianistic chops
but doesn’t always let the music breathe.
Surprisingly, as Jeff Tyzik is the
Rochester Philharmonic’s Principal Pops
Conductor, the orchestral contribution
is also on the stiff side. With Rhapsody
in Blue as well, Nakamatsu doesn’t
seem to appreciate that this isn’t just
another Romantic virtuoso vehicle; it’s a
performance that impresses but doesn’t
persuade. Gershwin’s Cuban Overture is
the most successful selection, spirited
and rhythmically enlivened.
Sonically, piano and string sound are
on the bright side. Both keyboard and
orchestra are recorded close-up, and the
surround version doesn’t possess much
air, atmosphere, or sense of Rochester’s
Eastman Theater. AQ
Further Listening: Gershwin: Concerto
in F (Wild) (SACD); Chopin: Piano works
(Nakamatsu)
146 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
Brahms: Quartets
1-3. Piano Quintet.
Emerson String Quartet; Leon
Fleisher, piano. Da-Hong Seetoo,
producer and engineer. Deutsche
Grammophon B0008718 (two CDs).
The Emerson String Quartet has been
operating for 30 years and is entitled
to record everything in the standard
repertoire. Inevitably, some material will
fare better. Here, the Emerson scores
points for textural clarity and rhythmic
vitality, though its relatively lean sound
is better suited for Haydn, Bartók,
Debussy, or Shostakovich—even
Beethoven—than for Brahms, where a
fuller, riper ensemble tone can be more
rewarding. As always, the group’s blend,
balances, precision, and intonation are
unassailable. Fast movements are most
successful; in the slower ones, a plusher
sound and more tempo flexibility would
be preferable. Violin Concerto. Without taking a jot
To fill out the second disc, the Emerson
is joined by Leon Fleisher for the great
F minor Piano Quintet. Textures, again,
are transparent but the music sometimes
feels reined-in and over-refined. Fleisher’s
late-1970s recording with the Juilliard
Quartet is far superior, more energized
and dramatically compelling.
The ESQ works with its usual
producer/engineer, Da-Hong Seetoo,
who provides natural sound from the
Academy of Letters in New York City.
This is a close-up recording, but the
room is easily heard after loud chords.
Piano achieves good weight in its lower
octaves. AQ
Further Listening: Brahms: Quartets
(Alban Berg Quartet); The Haydn Project
(Emerson)
(HotWax)
Tchaikovsky:
Concerto in D for
violin and orchestra.
Nathan Milstein, violinist; Pittsburgh
Symphony Orchestra, William
Steinberg, conductor. Cisco/Capitol
CLP8512 (180-gram LP).
Though he never achieved the celebrity
of his rivals, Heifetz and Elman, to those
in the know Nathan Milstein was (in the
words of New York Times music critic
Harold C. Schonberg) “the most nearly
perfect violinist of his time,” possessed
of a famously “silvery” tone, a bow
hand second to none, and intonation
second only to that of Heifetz, who,
always mindful of sounding each note
correctly, played with somewhat less
freedom and exuberance than Milstein.
To prove the point, all you have to
do is listen to this Cisco reissue of the
Capitol recording of the Tchaikovsky
away from Heifetz (who is my favorite
violinist of the twentieth century and
whose performance of the Tchaikovsky
on RCA Shaded Dog is legendary),
Milstein is every bit as fine, with
phenomenal détaché bowing and simply
gorgeous phrasing throughout.
I know that urging you to buy yet
another Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto is
a hard sell, but make an exception for
this Cisco LP. The remastered sound
is detailed and dynamic (albeit a mite
dry), and Milstein’s performance is
phenomenal. Jonathan Valin
Further Listening: Prokofiev: Violin
Concertos (Milstein); Bach: Sonatas and
Partitas for Solo Violin (Milstein)
Music
Jazz
Stefano Battaglia:
Re: Pasolini.
Manfred Eicher, producer. ECM 8743
(two CDs).
For his second ECM outing, a wildly
ambitious and deeply thoughtful
undertaking, Italy’s Stefano Battaglia
honors his countryman Pier Paolo Pasolini
(1922–1975), an acclaimed filmmaker
as well as a distinguished poet, novelist,
playwright, philosopher, journalist,
painter, and outspoken political activist.
Any work about such a substantial and
provocative artist who met with such
a gruesome end—he was assassinated
on All Saints Eve (Halloween), beaten
with heavy sticks, and repeatedly run
over by his car on the beach of Ostia
near Rome—is bound to be immersed
in dark and disturbing tones. Battaglia’s
imposing two-disc set, featuring two
separate ensembles, is indeed teeming
with darkly introspective qualities. Yet,
it also resonates with great beauty and
tenderness, reflecting the spectrum of
emotions inherent in Pasolini’s films.
The first disc showcases Battaglia’s
lyrical piano alongside a group that also
tours as the Pietra Lata Sestetto. The
affecting opener, “Canzone di Laura
Betti,” is a melancholic piece dedicated
to actress-poet-singer Laura Betti that
features tight unisons between Battaglia’s
piano and Salvatore Maiore’s bass, with
a somber counterpoint provided by Aya
Shimura’s cello. Swiss trumpeter Michael
Gassmann plays soaring, ethereal lines
Music Sonics Extraordinary
148 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
and then offers a remarkably expressive
solo on the forlorn rubato number “Cosa
Sono Le Nuvole.” Battaglia reveals a
decided Keith Jarrett influence on sweet
aria “Canto Popolare” and on the pensive
“Fevrar,” then engages in a delicate
three-way conversation with Gassmann’s
trumpet and drummer Roberto Dani’s
sensitive brushwork on “Il Sogno Di Una
Cosa. “Teorema” is a more provocative
piece incorporating dissonance and
highlighting Mirco Mariottini’s brilliant
clarinet playing, while the buoyant
“Callas” represents the other end of the
emotional spectrum.
Battaglia’s overriding concept for the
second CD is far more atmospheric
and improvisational. Comprising
several brooding vignettes, it features
freewheeling interaction among the
composer’s piano, violinist Dominique
Pifarély, bassist Bruno Chevillon, cellist
Vincent Courtois, and percussionist
Michele Rabbia. A series of eight brief
improv pieces (“Lyra I-VIII”) runs the
gamut from whimsical to avant-garde.
Along the way, there are spirited call-
and-response duets for violin and piano
and a daring improv for piano, bass, and
percussion that makes dramatic use of
space, silence, and mournful counterpoint.
“Meditazione Orale,” a turbulent solo
piano piece based around a pedal point, is
particularly reminisicent of some of the
Excellent Good
passages from Jarrett’s Koln Concert, while
“Scritti Corsari” is a nervous excursion
that tips into Cecil Taylor’s zone.
The ambient “Mimesis, Divina Mimesis”
is a stirring duet for prepared piano and
percussion in which Battaglia plays inside
the piano percussively while drummer
Rabbia summons ringing overtones from
his cymbals with a violin bow. The evocative
“Ostia” (site of Pasolini’s assassination)
opens with gentle, sparse piano touches
answered by violin before yielding to an
undercurrent of dissonance. And the
somber closer is Battaglia’s requiem for
Pasolini that resolves to a bright tone
intended to reflect what the composer
calls Pasolini’s “contagious vitality.” This
is highly esoteric, terribly precious stuff,
probably more accurately falling under the
chamber music/contemporary classical
category than jazz. Call it art music, in the
same way that Pasolini’s films are regarded
as art films.
Because of the atmospheric nature of
the second disc, there tends to be more
overt echo on the piano and drums on
several of the interactive pieces to lend a
more expansive vibe. Sonically, it’s apart
from the first disc, which has the crisper,
drier sound of a live chamber-music recital
in an intimate space. Bill Milkowski
Further Listening: Kim Kashkashian:
Hayren; Jon Balke & Magnetic North
Orchestra: Kyanos
Fair Poor

The Nels Cline
Singers: Draw
Breath.
Jeff Gauthier, producer. Cryptogramo-
phone 133.
As the lead guitarist for Wilco since
2004, Nels Cline now gets his ya-ya’s
out on giant stages. But even his most
coruscating leads in Jeff Tweedy’s band
can’t compare to the ruckus he creates
with his Singers. Not duck-and-cover
white noise, but cathartic, overdriven
electric guitar blitzes rooted as much in
John Coltrane and Albert Ayler as Jimi
Hendrix and John McLaughlin.
On Draw Breath, the telepathic troika
of Cline, Devin Hoff (contrabass), and
Scott Amendola (drums and electronics)
parlays five years of playing together
into breathtaking re-definitions of avant-
garde jazz-rock. “Songs” vary in length
and temperament from four-minute
ruminations with near-romantic acoustic-
guitar plucking to 15-minute excursions
of supercharged transcendence. Though
it moves through strummed ringing rock
and Ornette Coleman-like improvised
melodic lines, experiments with texture,
and ventures into diaphanous cosmic
territory—Amendola’s stealth electronics
create atmospheres that repeatedly shift
the mood—this is so much more than
traditional “fusion” that the notion loses
all meaning.
With faultless sonics shaped to the
music’s vast space and dynamics, Draw
Breath manifests a world to explore for
eons. Derk Richardson
Further Listening: Wilco: Kicking
Television; David Witham: Spinning the
Circle
Mark Soskin: One
Hopeful Day.
Suzanne Severini and Soskin,
producers. Kind of Blue 10019.
A reliably swinging sideman to the likes of
Joe Henderson, Gato Barbieri, and Sonny
Rollins, pianist Mark Soskin joins rising
stars Chris Potter on tenor saxophone and
Bill Stewart on drums along with seasoned
veterans John Patitucci on bass and John
Abercrombie on guitar for his tenth
recording as a leader and first album for
this new Swiss label. Together, they breathe
new life into standards like “On The
Street Where You Live” through clever
reharmonization and rhythmic recasting.
Stewart provides the tight stop-
time pulse and polyrhythmic fills on
Soskin’s radically reimagined rendition
of Thelonious Monk’s “Bemsha Swing”
and fuels a blazing interpretation of
Chick Corea’s “Innerspace.” The title
track opens with delicate extended
piano before shifting to a lush quartet
ballad underscored by Stewart’s sensitive
brushwork. Abercrombie appears on
Soskin’s two other originals, the angular
romp “Step Lively” and the melodic
gem “Strive,” which features lyrical solos
and pleasing harmony lines between
Abercrombie and Potter. Soskin’s solo
piano rendition of Clare Fischer’s
“Pensativa” brings the collection to an
evocative close.
One Hopeful Day is characterized by
a warm, dry sound with the saxophone
most prominent in the mix. The balance
is just right, and the band chemistry is
spectacular. BM
Further Listening: Mark Soskin: 17
(Seventeen); John Patitucci: Line By Line
Jazz
Daniel Bernard
Roumain (DBR):
etudes4violin&electronix.
Roumain, producer. Thirsty Ear 57179.
Audacity is not the short suit for this
South-Florida-bred Haitian-American
violinist/pianist/laptop musician who
goes by his initials, floats the term “dred
violin,” and calls his nine-piece band the
Mission. But neither is he easily trumped
when it comes to technical virtuosity.
So his ambitious bridges between the
“legit” classical world and hip-hop culture
(including Hip-Hop Studies and Etudes for
solo piano, and Voodoo Violin Concerto No.
1) are as sturdy as they are bedazzling.
And his real-world music connections—
Ryuichi Sakamoto, Philip Glass, DJ
Spooky, Peter Gordon, and DJ Scientific
all work with him on this absorbing
CD—are as savvy and impressive as
his Internet use of MySpace, YouTube,
and flickr. Although he often draws raw
timbres from the meeting of his bow and
strings, and the somewhat metallic sonics
make his treble tones even harsher and
give the occasional serrated edge to piano
notes, nothing in these nine etudes is as
abrasive as one might anticipate.
The beat-driven, sample-rich tracks
are more playful than aggressive, and the
collaborations with Sakamoto (“The Need
to Be,” “The Need to Follow”) and Glass
(“Metamorphosis”) are romantically ripe
and executed with great delicacy—all
representative of promising postmodern
mastery. DR
Further Listening: Daniel Bernard
Roumain (DBR): Pulsing, Joan
Jeanrenaud: Metamorphosis
The Absolute Sound September 2007 149
Jazz
John McLaughlin,
Jaco Pastorius,
Tony Williams: Trio of Doom.
McLaughlin, producer. Epic/Legacy
8279696450.
Jaco Pastorius:
The Essential Jaco
Pastorius.
Richard Seidel, producer. Epic/Legacy
8869701287.
The long-awaited release of Trio of Doom,
concert tapes featuring the jazz-fusion
supergroup of John McLaughlin (guitar),
Jaco Pastorius (bass), and Tony Williams
(drums), has of late been the subject of
much discussion on Internet chat forums.
Fans won’t be disappointed. Recorded at
a 1979 music festival in Havana, these
mythic sessions capture the short-lived
jazz trio at both the height of its creative
powers and the apex of the fusion
movement.
Back then, McLaughlin lobbied against
the release of these tapes because of
concerns about poor sound quality—for
instance, Williams’ cymbals weren’t always
miked. A studio session was arranged
hastily in New York later that week and
the trio re-recorded three of the five
150 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
tracks. These studio recordings were then
inserted into the live tracks and released
by Columbia Records. Now, 20 years
after Pastorius’ tragic death in a Miami
beating, and 10 years after Williams’
passing, McLaughlin has decided to make
these fiery concert tapes available. The
result is 25 minutes of unadulterated
live material—five tunes in all—lovingly
remixed by McLaughlin and paired with
three album tracks and two alternate takes
of “Para Oriente.”
And what power. McLaughlin
unleashes some of his most searing
solos, set against Williams’ machine-gun
fills and Pastorius’ soulful funk grooves.
Williams’ two-minute opening drum solo
alone is worth the price of admission.
But the trio’s might didn’t arise from a
vacuum. McLaughlin and Williams—
alumni of Miles Davis’ seminal fusion
projects—played in the power trio Tony
Williams Lifetime, and Williams and
Pastorius recorded on Weather Report’s
1978 Mr. Gone. Still, this release reveals
improvisational skills only hinted at in
those other projects.
Despite the limitations of the source
material (prevalent tape hiss, for example),
McLaughlin has retained the excitement
of these live dates while boosting overall
fidelity with today’s recording technology.
The highs are clear, the lows pack lots
of punch (check out the rumbling kick
drum at the end of “Continuum”), the
soundstage wide-open.
Meanwhile, Epic/Legacy has timed
the release of Trio of Doom with a new
career-spanning two-CD set of Pastorius’
recordings as a bandleader, Weather
Report member, collaborator of guitarist
Pat Metheny, and session player. Alas, the
collection mirrors Rhino’s 2003-issued
Punk Jazz: The Jaco Pastorius Anthology.
Sonically, it’s a mixed bag, with the studio
stuff faring the best. If you already have
solo Pastorius, skip this and go straight
for Trio of Doom. Greg Cahill
Further Listening: John McLaughlin: The
Essential John McLaughlin; The Jaco
Pastorius Big Band: Word of Mouth
Revisited
Charles Mingus:
Tijuana Moods.
Bob Rolontz, producer. RCA Victor/
Legacy 88697 05533.
This absolutely essential recording ranks
alongside Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue for
its visionary scope, organic chemistry, and
profoundly blue expression. A timeless
piece of quintessentially American art, it
succeeds on so many levels that its sheer
power will likely resonate forever. This 50th
anniversary expanded edition includes all the
material from the original 1957 recording
along with the previously unreleased “A
Colloquial Dream,” a seminal jazz-poetry
piece with spoken-word narration by
playwright Lonnie Elder.
Inspired by a car trip that Mingus made
with drummer Dannie Richmond to the
wild Mexican border town, Tijuana Moods
reflects Spanish influences in the rhythms
and melodic motifs of tracks like “Los
Mariachis” and “Ysabel’s Table Dance.”
Yet a streamlined hard-bop aesthetic is
still very much in evidence on those pieces
and other loosely swinging originals in
the fluent blowing of alto saxophonist
Shafi Hadi, trumpeter Clarence Shaw, and
trombonist Jimmy Knepper.
Originally recorded at RCA’s massive
Studio A and remastered by engineer
Mark Wilder, the sound is remarkably
present. Richmond’s drums sit in the
middle of the mix and slightly back
from the frontline alongside Mingus’
resounding basslines. Meanwhile, Hadi
and Shaw are split wide left and right for
an expansive sonic spectrum. BM
Further Listening: Charles Mingus: Roots
and Blues; Mingus: Pithecanthropus
Erectus

Charles Mingus
Sextet with Eric
Dolphy: Cornell 1964.
Sue Mingus and Michael Cuscuna,
producers. Blue Note 92210 (two CDs).
In almost every way imaginable, Charles
Mingus was the jazz master of tension.
Part of it was personality—a walking
barrel of conflict, he was famously
explosive, socially and politically, as
well as on the bandstand. But tension
was also a primary musical element in
the legendary bassist’s compositions,
arrangements, and performances. None
of his bands incarnated and expressed
that essential push and pull better than
the short-lived sextet captured on this
previously unreleased albeit essential
concert recording.
Illness sidelined trumpeter Johnny
Coles when Mingus later took this band
to Europe, so what we have on these
two discs are more full-bodied versions
of “So Long Eric,” “Orange Was the
Colour of Her Dress, Then Blue Silk,”
“Fables of Faubus,” “Meditations,” and
Duke Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady”
than appear on the classic Théâtre des
Champs-Élysées recording The Great
Concert of Charles Mingus. Also included
are pianist Jaki Byard’s solo tour de force
“A.T.F.W. (Art Tatum Fats Waller),”
Ellington’s “Take the ‘A’ Train,” Waller’s
“Jitterbug Waltz,” and the quirky “When
Irish Eyes Are Smiling.”
The titles show how this sextet
embodied the transition from stride,
swing, and bebop to a roiling modernism
shaped by social protest, harmonic
experimentation, and “new thing”
freedom. Individually, Byard was perhaps
the most historically encyclopedic pianist
of his era; the classically trained Eric
Dolphy used his virtuosity to push alto
sax, bass clarinet, and flute into newly
liberated regions; trumpeter Coles and
tenor saxophonist Clifford Jordan were
solid hard-boppers, idiomatically more
contained than Byard and Dolphy, but
boasting sturdy tones and consistently
fresh solo ideas; and the rhythm team of
Mingus and drummer Dannie Richmond
(as perfectly matched as Scott LaFaro and
Paul Motian, Jimmy Garrison and Elvin
Jones, or Ron Carter and Tony Williams)
sublimely bridged the gaps, pushing the
envelop without unhinging the beat.
With so many components stirred into
the mix, it’s no wonder that every selection,
especially the magnetic “Meditations,”
feels kaleidoscopic. Yet the musicians’
adaptability and the leader’s unswerving
aim conspire to keep the feel unified. Even
during passages where the ensemble seems
to be collectively improvising, the sextet
often sounds like one of the most driving
big bands in history.
The excellent handling of the four-
decades-old tapes grants relatively
uncompromised aural access to every
instrument: horns and reeds are bright
and full; the piano (and Byard plays
fistfuls of notes from one end of the
keyboard to the other) is crisp and rich;
the bass (played both arco and pizzicato)
is impressively sonorous; only the drums
lose definition—but never force—in
spots.
Among the many brilliant solos, Dolphy,
who would be dead within months, again
proves why his singular conversational
style and colorful expressiveness added
so much to pivotal recordings by John
Coltrane, Ornette Coleman, Booker
Little, George Russell, Oliver Nelson,
and Andrew Hill. And whatever tension
existed between Dolphy and Mingus is
spun into pure musical gold on this jazz
“discovery” of the year. DR
Further Listening: Charles Mingus: The
Great Concert of Charles Mingus; Eric
Dolphy: Out to Lunch
(HotWax)
Coleman Hawkins:
The Hawk Flies
High.
No producer credit. Mobile Fidelity/
Riverside MFSL-290 (180-gram LP).
By 1957, Sonny Rollins and John
Coltrane were the hot tenor players,
and the venerable Coleman Hawkins—a
jazz fixture since the 20s—was passé.
Fortunately, Riverside Records got the
old man (he was all of 53) to dust off
his horn for this studio date of swinging,
straight-ahead jazz.
For the occasion, Hawkins’ sidemen
were Oscar Pettiford (bass); Jo Jones
(drums); Hank Jones (piano); J.J. Johnson
(trombone); Barry Galbraith (guitar);
and the relatively unknown Idrees
Sulieman (trumpet). There are a few
ballads (“Laura” and “Think Deep”), and
Hawkins’ own “Sanctity” and Hank Jones’
“Chant.” But Suliemen’s “Juicy Fruit” is
the highlight. The unison playing of the
horns is gorgeous, and Suliemen holds
what has got to be the longest sustained
trumpet note on record before launching
into a lovely solo.
The sound is quite natural, with a
relatively laid-back perspective that is
nonetheless quite present and dynamically
exciting. The horns are rich and burnished
(the trumpet with a nice bite), Pettiford’s
bass is round and warm (neither too
woolen nor thumpy), and the drums and
piano likewise finely captured. There’s a
nice amount of air, too, if little depth.
Wayne Garcia
Further Listening: Coleman Hawkins:
The Nighthawk (45rpm pressing); John
Coltrane: Blue Trane (200-gram mono
pressing)
The Absolute Sound September 2007 151
BACK PAGE
10 Questions for Lars Worre
CEO, DALI
Neil Gader
When did you first become aware of high-end audio?
I think I was probably eleven. My first experience was actually tape
recording, using a Tandberg reel-to-reel and running around with one or
two microphones. I was amazed at how much you could do to improve
sound recording. That was all I had to work with, but I always thought
it was good acoustical training, because it gave you a feel for stuff like
reflections and boundaries and what they do to the sound.
Was there a particular system that you dreamed of?
Three or four systems. One of them was Quad ESLs. I totally flipped
over the way a simple choir was reproduced, the clarity. Prior to that, it
was a pair of MartinLogan CLSes—the old ones with the wood frame
and no electrodynamic woofer.
A difficult speaker to drive.
And to set up. But I heard them under good conditions, and I would say
that those and the Quad 63s did something…they could make this huge
sound image. But the real point was the timing of the upper bass and the
lower midrange fundamentals. The impact of each fundamental tone was
intact. It’s the impact you get when you are in front of something live—
not loudness but a transient response that’s much lower in frequency
than normally revealed by electrodynamic speakers because it’s so hard to
reproduce. Also I should add the first Snell Acoustics Type A, developed
by the late Peter Snell. In my recollection, this speaker told me that it was
possible to make one speaker that would be almost perfect in all aspects,
without taking one virtue to the extremes and sacrificing the others. I
think Peter Snell could have taken it far, had he been here for a longer
time.
152 September 2007 The Absolute Sound
What’s the greater challenge, designing a
Megaline or a Mentor?
Frankly, it’s easier to do a Megaline than a Mentor.
The challenge with the inexpensive speaker is greater,
because you start out with something that’s basically not
ideal and a tighter budget, so you need to be creative
and work harder to achieve the best compromise—and
that’s the art of developing the best speaker, the best
compromise. I have great respect for designers that
create entry-level speakers that sound great at $200.
Are you still spinning records?
I’m not an analog freak, but I’m of the opinion that it’s
often good to refer to what analog can do. On the other
hand, you don’t have to listen to analog for a long time
to realize what digital can also do. It’s not really a religion
with me; both worlds have something to say.
What kind of music do you like to listen to
when you’re voicing speakers?
I’m very much into Bach piano music—quite a narrow
niche. And I’m a big fan of Glenn Gould. When it
comes to jazz, I have a particular weakness for stuff like
Duke Ellington/Johnny Hodges on the good old Back
to Back and Side by Side albums, along with most of Dave
Brubeck’s recordings.
What kind of speakers will we be listening to in
the next 10 years?
For speakers, DSP-controlled. I can’t tell you whether it
will be a very sophisticated room-correction system or
just a system that will try to fix maybe 50% of the well-
known basic problems of the drivers. But I’m pretty
certain that some kind of signal processing will be used
to handle some of the bigger artifacts of a speaker in
the room.
What kind of source player?
A ROM of some sort. Probably an electronic ROM
without any spinning device.
No hard drive?
I don’t think it will be necessary. A standard ROM is
quick enough to play things in high resolution. I think
you can almost do that from a high-speed SD card today,
and they cost almost nothing.
What’s your best advice for someone trying to
assemble a component system?
Even if I wasn’t in the speaker business this would be
my advice: Start off with a good pair of speakers and
at the same time a very good power amp. There are a
lot more examples of mismatches between power amps
and speakers than any other components.
What still inspires you?
What I really like to see are people who are not part of the
high end just sit down and listen to good music on a good
system. They are shocked at how well reproduced sound
can be. Just give me ten minutes of their time, and I know
I can draw them into this world. TAS