I would love Art Dudley even if I had never met him, listened to bluegrass with him, or swapped stories about aliens near a campfire under a milky-way-filled Cherry Valley sky. I would love him because he's Art D. and his audio writings are so I-am-there intimate and engrossing. Unfortunately, every time I read his stuff I want more. It is one thing to read audio porn but, for me, audio porn really needs sight and sound. In print form it is not fully satisfying. Forget MQA and DSD, I want POV. I want to see Art sitting on his new couch listening to Shindo-powered Altecs. Likewise, when I write my own stuff I fret, because you my dear readers did not experience even a little of what I heard. Well, thanks to John Atkinson's wise faith and Stereophile's auteur du cinéma Jana Dagdagan's fine craft . . . now you can.
In this video you will sit with me in the Bed Stuy bunker as I work on a Follow Up review of the shiny Joseph Audio Pulsar loudspeakers. You will hear what I hear. You will see how small my 13' x 11' x 9.5' listening room really is. You might notice it is not a sealed box but opens stage right and left to halls and other rooms. You will see my sturdy (and mechanically enhanced) Home Depot equipment rack and the Mytek HiFi Manhattan II DAC connected to my computer via a AudioQuest Cinnamon USB link and to my stoop-sale Integra DPS-7.2 CD-player/transport via Kimber Kable D60 Data Flex Studio coaxial link. Because I am in the middle of a cartridge review, I used my Linn Sondek LP12 Valhalla equipped with a SME M2-9 arm and Koetsu Rosewood Standard Cartridge connected to a My Sonic Lab Stage 1030 MC step-up transformer and my beloved Tavish Design Adagio tube phono stage.
These analog and digital sources were connected to the Pass Labs HPA-1 preamplifier/headphone amp via TriodeWire Labs Spirit (Mytek) and Auditorium 23 (Tavish) interconnects. The HPA-1 reached the super-transparent Pass XA25 amplifier via a 1.5m of Wireworld Silver Eclipse 7 cable. The XA25 was tethered to the Joseph Audio speakers via TriodeWire American cables. And look! There are those 24" Sound Anchor speaker stands I am always jabbering about. Also notice that old red-striped blanket on the couch, which, unfortunately, you can't see in my stories.
Jeff Joseph and John Atkinson both nodded approvingly when I played the featured native DSD128 Nama recording (MA M084A); as for me, I personally thought it this was the most transparent, detailed, and effectively neutral system I have assembled since starting as Stereophile. After every take, I would look over at Jana and say, "Damn! That sounded good —right?" but she would just frown and say, "Herb, can we do another take? You moved your head!" (I would love Jana even if she never scolded me.)
Special Note: In this video I used MA Recordings exclusively. In part, this is because I am master recordist-producer Todd Garfinkle's biggest fan —everything about his productions is musically superb and sonically perfect. But mainly I used these recordings because Todd is my friend and I have his permission to do so.
