Naim Supernait integrated amplifier
"We've tried making it more powerful. When I was away on holiday, some of our people cooked up a more powerful version and presented it to me on my return. It sounded awful."
Art Dudley
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Listening #61
Whenever my family and I travel together, I catch a glimpse of how the human mind works. Immediately after checking into our hotel, my wife goes to work distributing the contents of our suitcases among the room's various cabinets, closets, and drawers. Then, the next morning, I discover the location of my underpants <I>heuristically</I>: seeking without knowing, in the hope that some newly learned pattern will be imprinted on my brain. Thus do I earn the luxury of complacence: Every morning thereafter, my things are right where I know they should be.
Listening #60
I don't want a symphony orchestra in my room: That's crazy. I want their <I>music</I>, played with enough realism that I can hear how it's done.
Zu Audio DL-103 MC phono cartridge
In 1962, when tennis rackets were made of wood, newspeople were known for challenging the government, and the off-Broadway musical <I>The Fantasticks</I> was in its second year (the show closed in 2002), Nippon Columbia's Denki Onkyo (or Den-On) division introduced to the professional audio world a brand-new moving-coil phono cartridge. Developed in cooperation with the Japan Broadcasting Corporation, the DL-103 was one of the first attempts at making a truly wide-bandwidth stereo cartridge that nonetheless could withstand the rigors of back-cueing. The DL-103 was a nearly instant success with broadcasters, and its popularity spilled over into the world of domestic audio.
Listening #59
"Why can't I just buy . . . a <I>bicycle</I>?"
Musical Fidelity X-T100 integrated amplifier
<I>Specialization</I> seems to be an inevitable consequence of progress: As the products of man and God become more and more complex, they're called on to do fewer things in more focused ways.
Linn Ekos SE tonearm, Keel LP12 subchassis, & Trampolin turntable base
Visit www.stereophile.com and look at the <A HREF="http://cgi.stereophile.com/cgi-bin/showvote.cgi?522">Vote Results for June 17, 2007</A>: You'll see that when we asked our readers to name the one audio product that's spent the greatest amount of time in their systems, the most common answer by far was the <A HREF="http://www.stereophile.com/turntables/1103linn">Linn Sondek LP12</A> turntable (footnote 1). Little wonder that Scotland's most famous record player endures as an object of attention for various and sundry commercial <I>tweaks</I>.
Listening #58
Is it my imagination, or has the low-power tube movement of the last 15 years gone hand in hand with a renewed interest in moving-coil step-up transformers? Trannies remain misunderstood or ignored by most of the audio press—requests for review samples continue to be met with genial shock, rather like tourism in the Budapest of the 1990s—but enthusiasm for the practice seems only to grow. That leaves me to wonder: Did the unquestioning use of <I>active</I> pre-preamps for so many years grow out of the same bad attitude that gave us all those awful-sounding high-power amps and low-sensitivity loudspeakers? You know the mindset: Parts are cheap. Gain is free. Do it because you <I>can...</I>
Listening #57
A moment of silence, please, for the mouse in my shed: I've had a trap there for weeks, baited with peanut butter—I should have just waited for the food poisoning to do its work—and the poor little bastard finally found it.
Benz-Micro MC20E2-L MC phono cartridge
The ceiling remains, but the floor has changed: Benz-Micro continues to offer a selection of rather expensive phono cartridges, including their well-established LP Ebony ($4700) and Ruby 3 ($3000) models. But in recent years, my attention has been drawn by the succession of <I>budget</I> Benzes: first, the Gliders ($795), then the ACEs ($550), and now the MC20E2-L ($199).