The Absolute Sound December 2022

Email the Editor: rharley@nextscreen.com or: TAS, 2500 McHale Ct., Ste. A, Austin, Texas 73758 Correcting the Record In his review of the Zesto Andros Deluxe II phonostage (Issue 328), Rives Bird wrote that lower load impedance gives a cartridge's suspension more freedom of movement, and that higher load impedance offers more damping. That is 100 percent backwards. Perhaps the confusion was due to the fact that, paradoxically, a lower impedance presents a greater load to a cartridge, and vice versa. In my physics class at the Bronx High School of Science in 1965, a student volunteer was turning the crank on a small generator that had no load (open circuit, infinite ohms). He Stood there cranking and cranking, with a silly grin on his face. Suddenly the instructor threw a knife switch, shorting…

“What all these manufacturers don't understand is that our allegiance is to our readership, not to their marketing plans.” A few months ago, I was speaking on the phone with a manufacturer who was pitching me on the idea of the magazine reviewing the manufacturer's ambitious new product. After learning about the product during the call, it was obvious that Jonathan Valin was the ideal reviewer. Jonathan has extensive experience in, and enthusiasm for, the category; he has a large reader following; and his writing ability and style would perfectly fit with this potentially ground-breaking product. But when I proposed Jonathan for the review, the manufacturer balked. Why? Because Jonathan had favorably reviewed another product in the same category. The manufacturer assumed that Jonathan had some sort of allegiance to the other…

Goldring Eroica HX Phono Cartridge The Goldring Eroica HX high-output, high-performance cartridge makes upgrading from a moving-magnet to a moving-coil model straightforward. The Eroica HX delivers moving-coilquality performance from a moving-magnet phono input, allowing turntable owners to enjoy the performance gains of an mc cartridge without the hassle of a system-wide upheaval. The Eroica HX is designed to work straight from the box, and to slot into an existing system with no fuss. Features include a new pure-iron cross-armature design for correct impedance matching and ultra-fine enameled-copper windings for higher output and low crosstalk. It's equipped with Gyger II diamond stylus that can trace frequencies as high as 50kHz without distortion. The housing is made from a lightweight Pocan composite material, chosen for its low-coloration properties. Compatible with virtually all tonearms,…

THE GREAT PIANIST MINORU NOJIMA has died. Nojima was a child prodigy and studied in his early years with Lev Oborin in Moscow and Constance Keene and Abram Chasins in New York. He came to international attention initially as the second prize winner in the 1969 Van Cliburn Competition. He earned much admiration from his fellow pianists in his subsequent career. (I recall how, at the end of one of Nojima's recitals at UCLA's Royce Hall, Leonid Hambro ran down the aisle towards the stage shouting to everyone, “This is it; this is it. This is what piano playing is all about.”) But his public fame in the U.S. was, to begin with, inhibited by his reluctance to record, apparently through dissatisfaction with the sound available on commercial recordings. Then in…

The idea of honoring those men and women who've been instrumental in creating the high end has its roots in TAS’ series of large-format books, The Absolute Sound's Illustrated History of High-End Audio. While researching Volume One, TAS writers and editors developed a renewed appreciation for the achievements of the pioneers who laid the foundations of this great industry. To honor these visionary engineers, entrepreneurs, and journalists, we decided eight years ago to create a High-End Audio Hall of Fame. For the inaugural round of inductees in 2014, we asked our writing staff to submit a list of candidates. The criteria were simple: Who had the greatest impact on audio's evolution from laboratory experiment to consumer product? Who shaped the high end most profoundly, either through technical innovation, business acumen, or…

DAVID HAFLER was a major force in transforming what was a fledgling electronics hobbyist market in the late 1940s into a high-fidelity audio industry. It would be fair to say that Hafler was more influential in those early years in developing consumer hi-fi components than anyone else. A native of Philadelphia, he stayed close to home and earned a mathematics degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1940. Following military service during WW2, he reconnected with Herb Keroes, a childhood friend, to found the Acrosound transformer company in 1949. Acrosound successfully promoted and popularized the Ultralinear output stage; its TO series of output transformers became very popular with Williamson amplifier constructors in the 1950s. But when it came to business plans, Hafler and Keroes were rather incompatible. While Keroes was focused…