Stereophile April 2015

I’ve known a lot of folks with impressive LP and CD collections who were perfectly content with the sound of the crappiest of hi-fis. This diverse group has included recording engineers, musicians, and owners of record stores. Loving music isn’t the same thing as caring about the sound of music, and maybe, in some alternate universe, those folks wouldhave-been, could-have-been audiophiles. But in this universe, they didn’t, and I’m not sure why. It’s clear that we audiophiles are a different breed. We crave a deeper connection with the sound of music. We also love gear, so we’re much more likely to do whatever it takes to accommodate speakers and electronics that take up an inordinate amount of our living space. To us, the gear looks cool. “Civilians” think we’re nuts. My sound…

Give me a good hi-fi system Editor: I agree with Steve Guttenberg (“As We See It,” January 2015, p.3). It’s hard to focus on a lovely adagio when the person next to you is sneezing and coughing and you’re worried about catching a cold. Likewise, people talking in jazz clubs is a huge turnoff. So give me a good hi-fi system, a nice glass of wine, and a silent background. That’s how I enjoy the experience of listening the best. —Tom Schnabel Marina del Rey, CA tom@tomschnabel.com Nailing the nervosa Editor: Congratulations, Mr. Robert Schryer (“Audiophilia nervosa,” February 2015, p.3). You hit the nail on the head! —Vic Miranda New York, NY An incurable disease? Editor: At last, gentlemen, there is recognition of this dreadful, incurable disease (“As We See it,” February, p.3). The only known treatment is to keep…

ATTENTION ALL AUDIO SOCIETIES: We have a page on the Stereophile website devoted to you: www.stereophile.com/audiophile-societies. If you’d like to have your audio-society information posted on the site, e-mail Chris Vogel at info@XLinkAudio.com. Please note that it is inappropriate for a retailer to promote a new product line in “Calendar” unless this is associated with a seminar or similar event. CALIFORNIA ▪ Sunday, March 22, 2–5pm: The Los Angeles & Orange County Audio Society will hold its monthly meeting at Upscale Audio, in Upland (2504 Spring Terrace, 909-931-9686). The new, powerful PrimaLuna DiaLogue Premium HP integrated amplifier, preamplifier, and amplifier will be auditioned for the Society. The wondrous Kiseki Purpleheart N.S. cartridge will be used in the analog system. Kevin Deal, president of Upscale Audio and vice president of the Society, will host…

YOUR SPECIALTY AUDIO RETAILER #1 Paul Messenger Caveat emptor, the ancient Latin phrase meaning “let the buyer beware,” is something today’s purchasers of high-end hi-fi gear need to keep in mind. Recently, an audio hi-fi dealer was telling me about the common but reprehensible practice of “showrooming”: customers using the demonstration facilities of a traditional bricksand-mortar retailer to decide among various components, prior to buying for significantly less money from an Internet outlet. On one occasion, however, the Internet buyer returned to the dealer’s store, bringing with him the new component he’d just purchased online. It looked identical to the in-store unit he’d heard earlier, but when dealer and customer sat down to listen, it sounded a lot less impressive than the official sample the retailer had bought directly from the manufacturer. It…

Forty years ago, moving-coil cartridges were exotic. Now they’re mainstream. The main advantage of MCs is obvious: rather than the system used in movingmagnet cartridges, in which relatively heavy magnets attached to the stylus’s cantilever are moved past a stationary coil-and-armory assembly to create the electrical signal, moving coils, as the name implies, move the relatively lightweight coil and armature past the magnets. The lower the cantilever assembly’s moving mass, the lower the system’s response time. The lower the response time, the faster and more detailed the reproduction of the music. And MCs’ electrical characteristics mean that they have greater bandwidth. Those aren’t the only two types of phono cartridge, of course. There are the moving-iron systems used by Grado and Soundsmith, as well as strain-gauge types and the new optical…

“Too much Stokowski.” —Sergei Rachmaninoff in 1940, reacting to a demonstration of a stereo recording of Leopold Stokowski conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra I don’t remember when, but at some point during the past few years I realized that, in my home, mono cartridges outnumber their stereo counterparts. A few weeks ago, my collection of phono equipment took another step in the same strange direction: After receiving from Ortofon a sample of their CG 25 DI Mk.II mono pickup head ($902) for review, I was so impressed with its sound that I asked if I could buy the review sample. Now, having put check in mail, I own twice as many mono cartridges as stereo ones. Take that, multichannelism. The strangeness is heightened by the fact that the CG 25 is, apparently, the…