John Marks

For roughly the same amount of money, you can buy a new Toyota Camry or a used mid-sized Mercedes-Benz sedan. The new car has several things going in its favor: no one else has ever driven it, smoked in it, or ferried dogs and kids and fast-food leavings in it, and it comes with a fresh warranty and the latest safety equipment. But the used Mercedes has other things in its favor: having started with a much larger "build budget," it is, simply, more car for the money all around—you just have to pick a good one.

I've been chipping away for some time at the task of trying to put together a music lover's stereo system for about half the money of my last such effort: $2500 to $3750 now, <I>vs</I> around $7500 back in 2005. My timing was good: CD and DVD receivers are a hot product category, with several attractive new entries at various prices.

I had no idea, back when I set out to put together a music lover's stereo system in the $2500&#150;$3750 range, that while I was beavering away the stock market would tank and credit markets would freeze up&#151;or that the federal government would print money to bail out overextended investment banks, take equity interests in commercial banks, and become the lender of only resort for GM, Chrysler, and Ford. I usually avoid even the hint of political commentary in my audio writing, but I can't resist passing along a quip I'm very proud of: I <I>told</I> all my friends that, if they voted for John Kerry, within four years we'd have socialism, and I was right (footnote 1).

There is much to admire and to enjoy in this idiosyncratically charming hybrid loudspeaker. Eminent Technology has been around for about 25 years. Founder Bruce Thigpen was a pioneer in air-bearing technology, and ET's first product was a well-regarded air-bearing tonearm. The company later developed and was awarded patents for its Linear Field Transducers (LFTs): <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/floorloudspeakers/308et">push-pull loudspeaker panels</A> that operate on the magnetic rather than the electrostatic principle. Arraying magnets both front and rear of the plastic-membrane diaphragm eliminates a problem inherent in many planar-magnetic designs: as excursion increases, the magnetic restorative force diminishes. As can be expected, this technology is not efficient at reproducing bass, so most such speakers have been hybrids.

The Gini Systems "LS3/5a" is an unlicensed and inexact replica of the celebrated LS3/5a outside (remote location) broadcast monitoring loudspeaker originally developed by the BBC in the early 1970s. (For a pr&#233;cis of the LS3/5a's history, click <<A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/thefifthelement/690">here</A&gt;.)

Fried Products Corporation's Compact 7 is a two-way, standmounted loudspeaker with a 1" ring-radiator tweeter and a 7" woven glass-fiber&#150;coned mid-woofer in a "line tunnel" enclosure. Its cabinet is substantial and well made, with handsome real-wood veneers. The speakers come in mirror-imaged pairs, the tweeters offset toward the inside. The Compact 7 is unusual in that its mid-woofer is above its tweeter, which is likely related to the line-tunnel bass loading. Fried insists that the speakers be placed at least 28" above the floor, which dictate I followed.

In a moment, I will resume my ongoing quest to put together a music lover's stereo system for about half the cost of my last such effort (see my columns in the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/thefifthelement/1005fifth">October</A&gt; and <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/thefifthelement/1205fifth">December</A&gt; 2005 issues): $3750 rather than $7500. But first I want to urge everyone who hasn't already done so to check out <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/thefifthelement/208fifth/index3.html">the results</A> of the Five Great Art Songs of the Rock Era write-in competition announced in my February 2008 column. The winning entries are great&#151;really thought-provoking. Indeed, some of the lists, plus an unaccountably belated recollection, prompted me to put together my own alternate list. This list doesn't invalidate or replace my original one, but it benefited from the energy all the entrants (thanks, everyone) put into theirs. Here goes: