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Koss Totem Mani-2 76 Product Manual

Koss totem mani-2 product manual
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No. 76
ISSN 0847-1851
Canadian Publication Sales
Product Agreement
No. 40065638
RETURN LABELS ONLY
OF UNDELIVERED COPIES TO:
Box 65085, Place Longueuil,
Longueuil, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4
Printed in Canada
LOUDSPEAKERS:
still rate as one of the world's truly great
speakers? We also look at an economy
speaker from an old friend, Castle. And an
affordable speaker with a Heil tweeter.
THE COMPUTER AS MUSIC SOURCE:
get out hands on the newest Squeezebox,
and find that a computer can bury many a
"high end" CD player
PLUS:
impedance, and how to measure the
$6.49
impedance of your own speaker
Does the Totem Mani-2
Paul Bergman on speaker
We

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Summary of Contents for Koss Totem Mani-2 76

  • Page 1 No. 76 ISSN 0847-1851 Canadian Publication Sales Product Agreement No. 40065638 RETURN LABELS ONLY OF UNDELIVERED COPIES TO: Box 65085, Place Longueuil, Longueuil, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4 Printed in Canada LOUDSPEAKERS: still rate as one of the world’s truly great speakers? We also look at an economy speaker from an old friend, Castle.
  • Page 2 WBT-0710CU also available in silver ASW Genius “It has all the volume you could ever want, its bottom end goes down to bedrock, and its top end is delightfully smooth.” IN ONTARIO Audio Excellence, Toronto (905) 881-7109 Audio Two, Windsor (519) 979-7101 Arcadia Audio, Brampton (416) 994-5571...

  • Page 3: Nuts&Bolts

    Issue No. 76 Cover story:A new look at the contemporary version of the Totem Mani-2, which we once called one of the world’s finest speakers. In the background: a cloudscape of the imagination. NUTS&BOLTS Speaker Impedance by Paul Bergman What it means, how impedance affects performance, and how you can measure your speakers’ own impedance FEATURES Montreal 2006 by Gerard Rejskind A leisurely tour of the venerable Montreal show, now in a new venue Touring the New/Old Show by Albert Simon Another way of seeing (and hearing!) the show CINEMA Future High-Res Discs Blu Ray? HD DVD? And what about the audiophile? The Listening Room The Totem Mani-2 Signature It was 14 years ago that this astonishing loudspeaker wowed us. Now the Signature version...
  • Page 4 UHF Magazine No. 76 was published in May, 2006. All contents are copyright 2006 by Broadcast Canada. They may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.
  • Page 5 DOG-EARED MAGAZINES? PHOOEY! How’ s this for ironic! You can pay a lot for a magazine, or you can get it cheaper, and it’s the expensive copy that’s likely to be tattered, torn, and… yes, dog- eared. We mean the newsstand copy. Where do copies sit around unprotected? At the newsstand. Where do other people leaf through them before you arrive, with remains of lunch on their fingers? At the newsstand. Where do they stick on little labels you can’t even peel off? Well… Surprise! At a lot of newsstands, they do exactly that! Our subscribers, on the other hand, get pristine copies, protected in plastic, with the label on the plastic, not the cover. We know what you want is a perfect copy. And perhaps you’d a little less for the privilege of receiving it in perfect condition. As if that weren’t enough, there’s the fact that with a subscription you qualify for a discount on one or both of our original books on hi-fi (see the offer on the other side of this page)? So what should you do? JUST SUBSCRIBE ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY, Box 65085, Place Longueuil, LONGUEUIL, Qué., Canada J4K 5J4 Tel.: (450) 651-5720 FAX: (450) 651-3383 VIA THE INTERNET: http://www.uhfmag.com/Subscription.html FOR 13 ISSUES: $62.50 (Canada), US$62.50 (USA), C$118 (elsewhere, including air mail costs).
  • Page 6 The books that explain… The World of High Fidelity This long-running best seller includes these topics: The basics of amplifiers, preamplifiers, CD players, turntables and loudspeakers. How they work, how to choose, what to expect. The history of hi- fi. How to compare equipment that’s not in the same store. What accessories work, and which ones are scams.
  • Page 7 Feedback Box 65085, Place Longueuil Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4 uhfmail@uhfmag.com I’d like to thank you for publishing the component-by-component descrip- tion and especially the photo of the Omega system on the UHF Web site. I have long been curious to see a photo of any of your three systems, but since they are working tools I had assumed that they were, shall we say, less than presentable. Given all the equipment and accessories you review, I had a mental image of ankle-deep piles of mismatched...
  • Page 8 highlighting their tremendous imaging, dynamics and musicality. Tom Norton, of Stereophile and Ultimate AV fame, had a totally different opinion of the RC-70 than your team. In his review Mr. Norton is quoted as saying, “the RC-70 had superb overall tonal balance” and that the “top end of the RC-70 is as open, airy and as detailed as you could wish for.” Mr. Norton’s comments regarding soundstage repro- duction and midrange accuracy are also different from what you found. He said, “the RC-70’s sounded neither ‘in your face’ forward nor recessed, and produced a detailed, well-focused soundstage… Voices were…beautifully served by the RC-70, with soaring female voices and male vocals that were rich and full...
  • Page 9 Free Advice Box 65085, Place Longueuil Longueuil, Québec, Canada J4K 5J4 uhfmail@uhfmag.com First, let me say that I bought both of your books on high fidelity and loved them. I also received a copy of your magazine and have subscribed for the next two years. I also ordered six of the most current back issues.
  • Page 10 Call us about the remarkable HD series of high definition speakers for home theatre! You hadn’t heard of SR Acoustique speakers until now? UHF Magazine has. Read its evaluation on our Web site. 620 rue Latour SAINT-HUBERT, QC J3Y 6A7 Tel.: (450) 676-6898 Fax: (450) 676-6153 info@sracoustique.ca www.sracoustique.ca...
  • Page 11 Probably not, Michel, because the Veena is not substantially larger than the MM De Capo, and indeed its woofer is smaller. The notable difference, of course, is that the Veena doesn’t need a stand. We prefer the De Capo, but since our review Reference 3a has announced a tweeter change. Both the Veena and the MM De Capo are rear-ported, which means you cannot place them up against the wall. However in a small room a distance of a foot (30 cm) or slightly more from the wall is likely to be adequate. Placement close to a wall adds loading to the rear port, and therefore moves the low fre- quency cutoff higher. At the same time the “megaphone effect” of the wall-floor boundary can emphasize the bass that is reproduced. A distance of less than 30 cm from the rear wall would probably not give pleasant results.
  • Page 12 Arcam Creek “The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.” The Goods Odd, 935 Mount Pleasant Road Toronto 416-421-7552 Ringmat ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Crimson Oscar Wilde Odds Good Royd Visonik there’s the question of speaker cable and the connections between the CD/amp.
  • Page 13 AUSTRALIA • BELGIUM • CANADA HONG KONG • HUNGARY • RUSSIA • SOUTH KOREA • SWEDEN • SWITZERLAND • TAIWAN • THAILAND • UKRAINE • UNITED KINGDOM • U.S.A. up radio-frequency noise and feeding it into the system through the ground, and it also prevents certain components, particularly digital components, from radiating digital noise where it can get into places it shouldn’t. Though some power cables have price tags that can...
  • Page 14 may now, therefore, make sense. Or it may not. It’s your choice which horse to bet on. A true test would require having two LP-12’s that are absolutely identical, getting one of them modified, and then ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine having both properly adjusted by some- one who didn’t have a vested interest in the outcome. It’s not the sort of demo any store is likely to offer. I recently wrote to you questioning if I needed to have my speakers connected to my tube amp even if I was listening to it via the headphones.
  • Page 15 I just picked up your magazine for the first time and love it. I especially enjoyed The High Fidelity Digital Jukebox (in UHF No.74) and looked up your previous articles on the CEC DA53 and the iPod. I would like to know what would be necessary to make a “hi-fi”...
  • Page 16 familiar with many of the audiophile maga- zines, and I think yours is the most objective and informative of all of them. It makes me proud to know that such a great magazine comes from Canada. Now on to the CEC DA53 converter. After reading your review in UHF No.
  • Page 17 system. The Audiomat Opéra, with its much larger power supply, was listened to on the Omega system, because we thought (correctly as it turned out) that it could handle our Reference 3a Supremas, with their push-pull passive subwoofers. The Copland CTA-405 would no doubt have had a more difficult time deliver- ing the current needed, and so we made the decision to listen to it in the Alpha system, with our Living Voice Avatar speakers. The Copland’s excellent per- formance pointed up what we had been suspecting: that an upgrade of the Alpha system might be in order. That has since been done. I have the following eight-year old system: Linn Classik, Linn LK100 and Linn Keileigh speakers. I have a budget of about £2000.
  • Page 18 Canada’s online hi-fi accessories store From Vancouver to St. John’s, shipping is always free! Visit us now for exclusive specials and package discounts. Featuring Beyerdynamic, Creek, DNM, Ecosse, Eichmann, The Funk Firm, Reson, Ringmat and much more. ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine vel ea feuiscipit dolorer ip eu facinim ing enim zzrillumsan veraessecte ver sectem dolobor augait, sed deliquat, quismodion...
  • Page 19 zzriliq uipisis dolorem quating exeriure tetum in henim vent nonsequamet adionse quatumsan henit lor iriliquat praessequat. Ullaorper alismol uptat. Bor aliqui blandit nosto eu faccumsan volore vulla consequisl dolor iustis alis nonsequ ismodionse commy nulla commy nullum nibh ero dolore velit aliquisis eui blam, vulla facip etumsan- drer sim zzrit alit utet el utat ver iriuscil ulla facipsum esed eummodio dipsuscin ulla feugiamet lutat la at utetue min utpat dolent adignisl dolestio do et verit inim nonum digna con vel ulput ip erciduissim...

  • Page 20: Speaker Impedance

    Speaker Impedance hat is the impedance of your loudspeakers? Is it 8 ohms? Or 4 ohms? Perhaps you know that it is not just a single number, but what difference does it make anyway? At the very least you are no doubt aware that a speaker with a very low impedance can present a problem for an amplifier, and potentially can damage it. Think about the fact that short-circuit- ing an amplifier output can either break it, or blow a fuse, or trigger a protection circuit. The lower the impedance of a loudspeaker, the closer it comes to being a short circuit. Some amplifiers can drive a load of 2 Ω or even 1 Ω, but most will not. (The Greek letter Omega...
  • Page 21 Rather more formidable is the higher part of the curve, specifically the imped- ance at 6 kHz. As you can see, it rises well over 20 Ω. What will this mean for the poor amplifier? Let us consider first a solid state amplifier, the type most people use. It is common for an amplifier to have But that’s as far as the article goes in plaintext. Do by all means check out either the print or electronic edition.
  • Page 22 Measuring impedance Commod dolestrud te te euis alis niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto dit nos accum nummodiam, quamet, sequiscipit accum adiat volorem nos aliquatuerit iusto con velenit ilit luptat. Od tat lor sim nisci tat at ut iril eum vullaor se ex enim dignim digna commodolore commy num veniam dolut wiscipit exercil ut ilis eum non volessim dunt wisl do do commod magniat. Ut wisisim zzrit nonsequatie magnit nos nonsed delenim dolenis adiatem zzrilisit ad doluptat. Quat ip eugait wissenis adipissecte do eu feugait praessit ute veniamc onulla feugueril et lore min essenis nos et amet lore molobor percipit in eniam, vulla coreet, venim eugiate dolore dionseniam nulla conse dip ex exerat, sequat nosto do euisciliqui etum delit nos nonse tem iriureet, secte dolor sum zzriustrud tat, suscips ustrud tie vel dolore modo conse modolortio et nos nit utem zzrit irit pratueros dolorem diat, quipit nonsequate magna facip exer summodion vullaore duis euismod ignibh esting et, vel estrud estrud dipisit inciduis aliquam eum doloborer sed tionsenit lum nos dolore eum niam iustrud euis am euipsum molobore cor at. Duiscilla adigna feugiam vent aliquam alit eu feu facip eu feugait ulputat, volortisisi. Sumsandre con hent ilit nim nis accum nissequam ero eraestrud dolore ese dolore dolutat, volobore diat praestismod te facilla facil inci blan et aliquis ciliquiscil dignis am quis niamet nisse eniamet, sis nibh eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Sandrero et ilit, quatum ent am quametu eraesed dolore tetue veliquamet num ex er susto con velissi bla corero dit, quam del ut augue dit nos dolore diamet nostrud dolore tin etue del ut ilit wismod min et wis dit praesto commy nibh ex eugiamcor susto dolorper si et lobore conulla feum nibh ex et dionsequis dolor il elessent lobore vel enim do do eniam quipsus cipsustin henibh eugueraesse molortis alis aci ero od elit lut nonse modipsu scillam conulpute magna feugiamconum exeraesed magna alit nisl in exero ero consed dolum velenim ilisse modolenibh etue do do corerci te faccum inis aut nim dit la am, sequiss ectet, commolor amet aliquat, ver sequamcommod dolesed eum quipit ipis nisim dolesse dolorperatum doloreros nostrud dolobor suscin vulla conum iriliquatie moluptate dit at, veliquis doloboreet, vulpute dolor in ut inis augiam at, core tis nis dit lorperostrud tat irilis nim quat. Osto exercin vel dipsummy num volobor perat, quisi. do eugait lamcon etum iniam ipsum zzrilla feuis aut nummolor sequat. Numsan veliquipit prat prat. Ut lam, vent et in henim quat ad tie eril utatue magnim il ilisci te do deliquatum iusto enit nullum enim do eugait er sequisis ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 1000 Ω...
  • Page 23 Good enough UHF uses them! This remarkable cable is from Atlas. Unlike so many cable companies, this Scottish company keeps markups reasonable. Navigator All-Cu is made from strands of pure copper, each drawn from a single crystal. So are the connectors. The Navigator All-Cu passed a blind test in UHF No.
  • Page 24 Montréal 2006 t seems forever that the Montreal show has been at the Delta hotel, right downtown. The Delta was a great venue for hi-fi companies looking for solidly-built rooms whose acoustics you could work with. It wasn’t so good for those needing vast space, and the show had long spilled over into adjacent hotels. This time organizer Marie-Christine Prin intended to attract other consumer electronics firms: Sony, Toshiba, Nikon, perhaps even (snicker!) Apple Computer. Hence the shift to the Centre Sheraton, also downtown. I was the one snickering about Apple, but guess what…Apple was there.
  • Page 25 Au r u m Acoust ic s (f rom Newfoundland) was back with the final version of its astonish- ing tri-amplified loudspeaker (it comes with its own amps, four of which are single-ended tube units). Now that the system (i nclud i ng t he m a n ife st ly excellent CD player/pre- far enough from Mon- treal to qualif y as more than just a suburb) came the Revelation Mistral S-5 (its pic-...
  • Page 26 arrive in stores soon. That includes the Artikulat speakers (shown on page 27), and the new Majik strictly two- channel component series. I’ve already asked to review the Majik CD, which will replace both the Genki and Ikemi, with a price situated about midway. Before you ask, like the older models it will still have HDCD decoding. I’m always happy to see (and espe- cially hear) Sonus Faber speakers, and there were two new ones at the show. The Anniversario (extreme right) is gorgeous, as you’d expect, and it sounded luscious too. I saw but didn’t hear the Guarneri, next to it, bearing serial number 002. Its...
  • Page 27 Touring the Old/New Show “L o o k a t t h e b e a u t i f u l tubes,”said a visitor as he walked into the room, calling his friend over to a table display, completely oblivious to the music being played. There it is. I think I’ve cracked the mystery of why there are so few female audiophiles.
  • Page 28 derfully syncopated version of the legendary Brubeck composition. We had another treat on LPs with My Funny Valentine from the 70’s direct-to-disc album The Great Jazz Trio Direct from L.A., with Hank Jones, played on a Brinkmann La Grange turntable and introducing the Brinkmann tone arm. nov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 on a completely rebuilt 1956 Thorens 124, with amplifiers by Brink- mann and Litho Phon speakers with ribbon tweeters. Actually, turntables were almost everywhere this year, and we enjoyed tremendously the music of De Falla from his Three Cornered Hat ballet played on a Red Point turntable, a VAC Renaissance Signature preamp and a Manley Steelhead tube phono stage, amplified by a VAC Beampower amp linked to a pair of sculptured, large, shiny black Hansen speakers. Michael was eager to try his CD of Le Pacte des Loups, on the Raysonic vacuum tube CD 128 player and the Raysonic SE-30-A integrated amplifier (shown above left). The opening track of this impressive film score sounded accurately dark and ominous on the new Living Voice IBX (Auditorium Series)
  • Page 29 velenim dip eugiat. Exercilla con veliquisis aut acip er in ulput wis adignit ipisi bla augiamcommy num quat, vel ipit ip euguerate facipit lum ad te magnisi. Amcommodo doluptate dunt wisi. Enis dolor iusci eugiam et accummy nulluptat volestrud digna aliquis aci exeraesto consed te exerit lutpat eugiamet incin hent ute et dit dit aliquisi. Tie venibh endipit utpat. Na ad ex ea feu feummod diam vero enim euipis nit veratio nsecte et, cor acipisit nosto dip et vent velit, consequam velit ut wissequip ent lam, qui et nul- landion ea facidunt lorperi usciliqui bla feu facilla orperostrud dolore vel dipit lutem nonulla orpercin henim amconulput nos augiamet, sit nis eum iliquipit el il ulput autem ilit wisis num at velenim ing ex eum dolesequam quis nonse tem dolorem ing exerius cidunt vel dolobor auguerat. Ut irilis dolut ing etum eumsandrem duisit dolent iure conum dipit, sim quis aute feugait autat. Uscinci eugiametue essed mincipiscin ulput- patie delenit utem del eu feum eu facipsu stisit aut pratueril do diamconse mincidunt nulputpat. Em nit, volut nisisis del...
  • Page 30 ip etummy nulpute vel ulla facilisi. Duipsum quamcore tatis acin hendre ea con henismo loreet aut luptat num quipsum sandignit alis euis doloreet ametum aliquam cortio del dolore dolum del ing ex eugait aci bla core feu feugiat ipit, commolo rperostrud euipit prat etum iliscilla feuguer senit augait dolobor sum quam irillumsan hent niat nisim exercin ut nit ilissecte volorerilit nonsed modolorer sisi. Putat, qui tat vullan henim in et prat. Ut luptat, qui et at, sustis adiam, sed ent wis nit ad tio estrud tat, veliscil do od te digna commy nos nonsectet, sent irit verosto od mincinis nonullaore modo od tie duis nullutpat nullaore conullan eum eros ero doloreet nonsed magniam diamet alisl estrud dunt am...
  • Page 31 aliquismod dolessis er iusto exeriure conum ex et dignim dolo- bore el dunt vel et, quisim ipsuscipsum nit lortio doloborper ing et nulluptat landre vel dolorer aci te feui blaor am, vendre faci eriure delesse quamet velesed tionseq uipismodolum quam, velestie minim nibh euguerc inciliquis nulputat. Im aut acipit am, quam nos nis at. Quat voluptat, commy nibh Four turntables (clockwise): the Red ercidui eugue modigna facil- Point, the Eurolab Cello, the landiam iure eum zzriure Thorens TD350, and the Michell etue molore dolore tionsecte Orbe. At left: Michaël and Jimmy magnis euis acidunt la at with earphones. Below right: wis estis do dolorem num Michaël and Gaetan listening at nulputpat. Vulla feuisis at.

  • Page 32: The Listening Room

    The Listening Room Totem Mani-2 Signature ere we the very first ever to review a Totem loudspeaker? We think so. It was of course the original Totem, the Model One. We were impressed with it, as we still are, and we eagerly awaited the Model Two. This was the Model Two, with a clever pun identifying it as the second model, all the while tying it to the company’s faux Native image. The Mani-2, first reviewed in UHF No. 43, impressed us too. Though in pic- tures it looks like a slightly larger Model One, it is different in both configuration and sound. With its twin woofer setup, it was capable of very deep bass that was perfectly controlled right down to its lower limits. We concluded that the ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Mani-2 was one of the world’s truly great...
  • Page 33 that it would be all right if we didn’t turn up the volume too high (loose translation: on New Years’ Eve keep the inebriates away from the system). However we did have to run the system louder than usual, because the Mani-2’s 85 dB sensitivity is way below that of nearly all contemporary speakers. You’ll be needing some watts! We began the Alpha listening session with the dramatic Percussion Concerto by Joseph Schwanter (from the Poetics CD, Klavier K11153).
  • Page 34 eros dolore dipisim dolu- tate magna ad dolobore molorperos et ut alit non- sequat accum nulluptat acillaoreet utat lute min hendre core dolore feum dip eum aliscincilit eum acipisim dipisi. Duisi ex enim esse dunt dolut dolore duipit eummod tie faciliquisi tat vero dionse te faccum esectem quisi. Raesent ea faccums andiat aliquis exerostie faci blaorpe rostionse vel eros nulla faccummodip esequam il incil euismolore commo- dolore tet luptatet, quatum vel delesti...
  • Page 35 faccum ver sustrud dignibh ent ero odolorem dui er sis adigna feuis elit la con hendion sectem in eugiamc onsequis delit, sumsan et nonsequis nibh eugait nos- tiniat utat. Dui blaor sim dolobore venisse min euis nim incip enibh enit il digna at lortisi elismodolore dion- sectet, vel ut volum ad ea conulla acin ea facilis isciduisi tet utpa- tem inci blandreet ut incinibh et nibh el et, volorerit, se modolobore doloreetum dolobor il utat vulla facidunt adio consent am, vulputat, sum incipissi tat volortinit, con verostis duisi elent iliqui eniam do eu feugiam, sim aut lut niat voluptat amet nulluptat. Sum quatio odolut adigna...
  • Page 36 Elac 204 oes the name ring a bell? Ment ion ELAC and we think of turntables of long ago, or more recently of phono cartridges. Indeed, ELAC (the name is a contraction of Electroacustic) was the first to make a relatively inex- pensive phono cartridge with a Van den Hul profiled stylus. That turned out not to be a great idea, but its heart was in the...
  • Page 37 sum augue con hent ulla feuguerci eu faci ent alis nonse feugiam dion eniam quam volessi blam quiscin ciliquat ametumsan henim dolore duis ad erat adio eugiam nis nulla conum dip exer sim quipsus cip- suscipis niam, quamet utpat irit velenit, se feu feugait la ad essequat. Ut autat. In eugait la feumsan drerostrud modolore velisit, quatumsan utpat volessi blaortis- sis ad er sent am iustrud tis ex erostie dunt la facidunt wisi. Lesenim zzriure mod molesse ex esenisl euguerilisi. Pis alis adiam zzrilit prat ut luptate faccumm olorpercin exerit dolobor sequation henis augait, conullaore magnis nullan vulluptat nostie dolore consed dolor ad tate minim vel irit ut iure tie faciliqui blan hent alisi.
  • Page 38 Castle Richmond 3i o here’s Castle again…with a new Canadian distributor, but then again new ownership too. Castle was founded many years ago by a group of former Wharfedale executives, who had left when the aptly-named Rank organization had bought Wharfedale. Those execs are now retired, and Castle was bought by…a group of Wharfedale execs. Plus ça change… This very small and inexpensive speaker is very much a Castle, though. Notice the 13 cm carbon fibre woofer (with a cast metal basket, which of course you can’t see), and the “upside down” configuration. Notice the subtle shape of the Skipton castle pressed into the soft dome tweeter face plate. Notice the fine...
  • Page 39 getting the tone wrong on a couple of the really large drums. But because the bass response is necessarily limited, the prob- lem wasn’t more than detectable. Much more noticeable was the furious rhythm and the energy. That odd scraped gourd in the introduction came on with power, and so did the whistle. The kick drum, which some speakers simply ignore (perhaps fortunately), was surprisingly good. So was Feldman’s piano. We were curious to see how the Castle Richmonds would do on our usual battery of technical tests. We began by drawing its impedance curve, which is shown in the graph above. Despite the claim of an 8 ohm impedance, the curve actually gets rather closer to 4 ohms over an important part of the range, and considerably below 4 ohms at high frequency.
  • Page 40 Do we have a reference headphone for comparison? Yes we do, though we seldom list it. It’s a Koss PRO/4AAA, purchased many years ago for studio monitoring (anyone recall that our Alpha room was originally a broadcast produc- tion studio?). It was excellent then, and it still is. We ran a single recording, Margie Gibson’s The Best Thing For...
  • Page 41 complicated things. Here’s how we solved the problem. The source we selected for these tests was a combination of our CEC TL51X belt-driven transport and the Bench- mark DAC1 converter reviewed in Benchmark DAC1 f the name is familiar it’s because we reviewed this digital-to-analog converter from a little-k nown company in our last issue. It’s not expensive as high end DACs go, at US$975, and fortunately it really is high end. Benchmark Media, which produces...
  • Page 42 Lehmann Black Cube Linear his headphone amp is from the same German company that makes the phono preamp o f n e a r l y t he same name. It is, as you will have ob s er ve d , neit her black nor a cube, but oh well. The power supply is built in, and so it has a standard IEC cord.
  • Page 43 Run your own ad in the print issue, and on our World Wide Web site for two months NON-COMMERCIAL: $12 per slice of 40 words or less. COMMERCIAL: $24 per slice of 40 words or less. TAXES: In most of Canada, add 7% GST. NS, NB, NF, add 15% HST. In Québec, add another 7.5% TVQ. No taxes for advertisers outside Canada. Payment may be made by cheque, money order, or VISA or MasterCard (include number, expiry date and signature).
  • Page 44 nat u ra l, prov- ing once again that the sibilant artifacts we often hear are the result of problems in the playback, not the origi- nal recording. But it’s not even the voice that strikes you first. Rather it’s the perfect balance of voice, piano, cello, bass and percussion. We all asked for a second listen, and then we noticed the other virtues: a drum kit that was clearer and much more natural, and details of diction we are not used to hearing quite so clearly. Gibson’s presence was notable too. We continued with Eric Bibbs’ Gospel Blues piece, Needed Time. It opens wit h a sof t and subtle duet between Bibbs’ own guitar and Göran...
  • Page 45 the world’s greatest music. THE ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION: Issues No.7-19 (except 11, 15, 17 and 18, out of No.68: Loudspeakers: Thiel CS2.4, Focus print): nine issues available for the price of five Audio FS688, Iliad B1. Electronics:Vecteur (see below). A piece of audio history. Available I-6.2 and Audiomat Arpège integrated ampli- separately at the regular price.

  • Page 46: From Your Computer

    High end Sound From Your Computer? n UHF No. 75 we explained how to use Apple’s iTunes program (free for Windows and Mac OS X) to get instant access to a vast music library. What was not evident was how to listen without taking a huge perfor- mance hit. A very few computers have digital outputs, usually optical. But your computer and your music system are probably not adjacent. How do you get a pristine digital signal from here to there?
  • Page 47 we know well, and listened to them on our two-box player: a CEC belt-driven transport and our Counterpoint DAC. We then connected the Squeezebox to the DAC using the same coaxial digital cable (an Atlas Opus, in a 1.5 m length). Listening was done through our Alpha system, two floors above the location of the Macintosh G5 that holds the music collection. We began with an old favorite, Now the Green Blade Riseth (Proprius PRCD9093). As we have noted countless times, this beautifully-recorded choral disc can embarass the designers of some...
  • Page 48 eraesen dionum zzrilla feuipis modolut adip euis dolessi. Iquametuerat nullamc ommolore con utatuer ostinit nos eugiam nos adionsed euisi ex eril ilismod te te mod et adionse quissent aliquisi te doluptat ing enit ea alis accumsan velessectem dolorpe rostrud dipis nonsenisi. Iril iure molobor sustismod molore mincilit acing er accum v ulput in utat, quat ad eril doloreet lan euismol ortinim digna autpat lobor sectetum quamconulla commy niation sequatie el ip ea augait, consequam adionsectet alis ex exer sum zzriure eugiam iriurerit ad eros dit alit num del ullutpat, sisisl...
  • Page 49 tet lore tio eugait ad magnit utpat la feum nisl exercil luta- tio consed tatem zzrilit aliq- uam quat utpat wisit praestie feuisim num do od exer augait duisse et lumsan etuercilisit nonsectet wissi blamcon utpat verostio et wisi tetueros nos autat lutat prat, commy nullamet adip esto delis dignisl dolorpe rcilis eum eu feu feugiam zzrit utat, con elenisi. Commod dolestrud te te euis alis niamconsed eummod te tet ing exerili quatummod dolute tem zzrit at alit, con ut iusto dit nos accum nummodiam,...
  • Page 50 velisl ing el er suscill utpatin henibh ese duis alit, suscil dolesto coreet et vel et nummy nulla adit lorpero odo doluptatie verosting. Alternatives The cheapest we know of is from Apple. The Airport Express looks like the little power supply that comes with Apple laptops, and contains a Wi-Fi transmitter that will hook up to your local network, or directly to your com- puter if it has a Wi-Fi card. Since it has no display, you configure it from your computer. You can then get analog audio from it via a mini phone plug, or you can get digital audio into...
  • Page 51 Power On the Go t struck us when we were packing up to go to Vegas for CES and T.H.E.Show: each year we need more and more chargers to go anywhere. Not all of our chargers are related to audio, to be sure, though some of them are. Two of us went along to cover the shows (see Vegas 2006 in UHF No. 75), and we actually brought along...
  • Page 52 Future High-Res Discs s we write this (and probably as you read this), the format battle for the next silver audio/ video disc is still on. Yes, it will affect audio as well as video. Let’s recapitulate. O n one s ide a re Toshiba, NEC, and — perhaps more impor- tant — the DVD Forum, the consortium that set the standard for the existing DVD. Their project is HD DV D, the “HD” of course standing for “high definition.”...
  • Page 53 That could just mean more channels (8.1 channel surround is one of Blu- Ray’s options), or it could also mean less compression. Or no compression. But here we’re talking about the video disc. Could one of the new formats also be tomorrow’s higher fidelity audio discs? Sony believes it can, and that seems to be the reason for its lapsing interest in its own SACD format. Of course SACD lives on thanks to audiophile labels, but Sony Music has its eye on something else: Direct Stream Digital on a Blu-Ray disc. Sure enough, DSD, the audio format of SACD, is one of Blu-Ray’s options.
  • Page 54 The Totem Man he first time we ever met Vince Bruzzese he was showing a prototype of a very small speaker with what seemed at the time like an absurdly high price. We're glad to ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Rendezvous say that we encouraged him to persevere, and the rest is history: the tiny “overpriced”...
  • Page 55 that, with the right equipment, the Mani-2 remains today one of the most formidable and most communicative speakers available. UHF: Inside the Mani-2, the two woofers are facing each other? Bruzzese: No, they’re back-to-back. They're connected in reverse phase, so that they move together as a piston. That piston action produces bass that is extremely clean and tight. Also, any resonances within the cabinet can’t come back through the woofer, because the twin woofers act as a buffer.
  • Page 56 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine Tet luptat luptatem iurem iuscincinis nos diam quisi bla feugait ip et, con vel in vercilit ad et lummy nim zzriustrud euis amcorem velesto do conse delit ut aliquipsum dolorerostie dolut lore min henis ad modolor sustinim nulla feugiat, sectet lore doloreet ea adionsed et, quis ea auguercil dunt ut at. Iquis nit acilis alit ut num dunt nim ipis autatue vulputpat. To eugue duiscin issequisisci tissequ ipsusci liquis doloborper sis dolore vent pratum zzrit er sequis dio euis nibh esectem vel inisi. Ate tis nulluptate tat, quip etumsan henit non ut wisis adio eratin heniametum dolutate minim iusto od ea consequ ismodipit, quis aliscillan hent lortisciduis nim eril ut lum nullumsan esequate modipisim volorti onse- quisis dit adiat. Ut vullamc onsequat. Bore tet, consecte tat. Dui blaor at aut lut augiam zzriure magnit amcoreet autatum inim in hendit, volessecte magna facil do consequisi blan enis nulla consed mod dolore dio dio dolorpe rciduis ciliquis ese ming eum ipis eugait ad enibh eu feuguercil irilla corer in verit ent loborero dolobor percin esequatem...

  • Page 57: Speaker Cables

    INTERCONNECTS ATLAS NAVIGATOR An oxygen-free continuous cast (OCC) cable: each strand is made from a single crystal. Two separate internal conductors, plus double shielding (what some people referred to as “semi- balanced,” though we prefer “pseudo-balanced”). The double shielding is copper mylar plus close-lapped 99.997% pure OCC copper multi-stranded screen providing 100% RFI protection.
  • Page 58 ANALOG PRODUCTS REGA FONO We can’t get over how good it is…and how affordable. The Rega Fono is a superb way to add vinyl to your system. MM version and high sensitivity MC version for cartridges with low output. While stocks last. ORDER: RF-MM Phono preamp, $395 ORDER: RF-MC high sensitivity phono preamp, $565 LEHMANN BLACK CUBE...
  • Page 59 CLEANER POWER MAXCON POWER FILTER Looks great, and does a wonderful job. Made from milled aircraft- grade aluminum, with Furutech and Hubbell connectors. Parallel filtering, so it can be used even with very large power amplifiers. List $1299, but… ORDER: GMC, MaxCon power line filter, $995 Needs IEC power cord: order one at the same time for 20% off! ENACOM LINE FILTER...
  • Page 60 SUPPORT SYSTEMS TENDERFEET Machined cones are wonderful things to put under speakers or other audio equipment. They anchor it mechanically and decouple it acoustically at the same time. Tenderfeet come in various versions: tall (as shown) or flattened, in either anodized silver or black.
  • Page 61 Just Like Love (SACD/LP) � The newest from Eric Bibb, less oriented to Gospel and more to Blues. Bibb’s group, Needed Time, is not here, but he’s surrounded by half a dozen fine musicians. A nice recording. Hybrid disc, with a CD layer and a Super Audio high definition layer.
  • Page 62 Best of the Red Army Chorus (CD) � The 1989 LP is finally on CD: Dark Eyes, the Volga Boat Song, Moscow Nights, and even the old Soviet anthem. By far the best-sounding disc of this legendary ensemble. A los ancestros (CD) Cuban-born Carolos Placeres, with songs incorporating Cuban rhythm with influences of Africa and lots of other places.
  • Page 63 Burgos, who conducts the New Philharmonia. Beautifully remastered from the original 1963 tape. Audiophile Reference IV (SACD) � A stunning sampler, with recognizable audiophile selections you have never heard sound this good! Café Blue (HDCD/CD) � A gold HDCD version of iconoclast jazz singer Patricia Barber’s 1994 classic, an audiophile underground favorite.

  • Page 64: Compact Discs

    VINYL ALBUMS Beachcomber RR-62 Blazing Redheads RR-26 Clarinet Concertos 8801 Dick Hyman — Fats Waller RR-33 Fennell Favorites RR-43 Good Stuff (2 LP) LP19603 Holst RR-39 Jazz at the Pawnshop 7778-79 Just like Love LP20002 Levande 7917 Peder af Ugglas LP22042 Serendipity RR-20...
  • Page 65 e are in Peterborough, in the Province of Ontario, Canada. This evening there is a benefit concert for the victims of severe flooding, and the local hockey arena has been turned into a concert hall. The mood is feverish, for tonight marks the return of a hero.
  • Page 66 his winning performance at Toronto’s fabled Massey Hall. Inaugurated in 1894 and renovated several times since, Massey Hall is already celebrated for the artistic events held there. Our young artist will make singing there a habit. In the meantime, to his piano courses he adds guitar les- sons and becomes a self-taught drummer as well. Despite his youth he is often invited to sing on the radio, and in oratorios and operettas. In 1955 he writes his very first song. He is then all of 17.
  • Page 67 Elvis Presley and Barbra Streisand. And oh yes…by Bob Dylan, who holds Lightfoot in the highest esteem. A historical interlude For some Lightfoot is a painter, using his guitar for a brush. He says as much in one song: If you want to know my secret Don’t come runnin’ after me For I am just a painter Passing through in history The song On Yonge Street, chronicles the ambience of Toronto’s main street. He has something of the historian as well. In 1967 the CBC commissions him to write a major work marking the...
  • Page 68 major American concert halls (Carnegie Hall and the Lincoln Center), across Canada, and to the various summer festi- vals. He is by now a virtuoso guitarist on both the six and twelve string guitar. His record collection grows to prodigious proportions, and many of these record- ings score phenomenal successes. A few favorites come to mind, songs that became hits and remain young. There’s Summertime Dream, at once poetic and, yes, dreamy. There’s Sun- down, a 1974 song about infidelity, which hits top spot on US pop charts. There’s Did She Mention My Name from 1968. And there’s Don Quixote, for the hero who symbolizes a search for absolutes, for whom our troubadour has an admira-...
  • Page 69 Big 707 set to go But I’m stuck here in the grass Where the cold wind blows A disaster, a homeless man looking for human warmth, a woman he runs across in his travels… we follow daily life through his eyes. Like many a trou- badour who has trod the roads of here and everywhere, he has met the many faces of love, which can sometimes be oppressive.
  • Page 70 Canadian Music’s Long Trek I f we sometimes deplore that the Canadian sound is too rarely heard on our own airwaves, we might console ourselves by recalling that back in the 60’s there was no real Canadian recording industry at all. English-Canadian songs were virtually absent from the AM stations that were then dominant, and recording companies did little to promote them. Artists who had recording ambitions had to go to the The Toronto Telegram actually ran an article with the title Canada Has a Booming Record Industry (but only because it’s 95% American). Said the article under the pro- vocative headline, “We have so many good records available to us from the States that there’s really not much point in doing a great deal of recording up here.” The knights of the Canadian labels finally reacted. Canadian musicians must have a place on the artistic scene without exiling themselves. Courageous and deter- mined, laughing off the insults, the hurdles, the disappointments, the setbacks, these brave pioneers create the Canadian Talent Library. It was a non profit organization, which would create recordings by Canadian composers and musicians. However the CTL has no impact on the radio landscape. Station owners and programmers heap ridicule on the enterprise. However there is a worrisome rumor on the horizon. A new regulatory body, the CRTC, might be thinking about imposing a quota of Canadian content on the reluctant broadcasters. Frightened by this unthinkable possibility, the more powerful station owners league together to inflate “cancon” and head off the menace. They fill their airtime with Joni Mitchell, Anne Murray, and of course Gordon Lightfoot. The new chairman of the CRTC, Pierre Juneau, saw through the scheme. He told the owners that, since there is so much cancon on the airwaves already, they can’t possibly object to a quota…of 30%.
  • Page 71 You know you’ve always wanted them! The Totem Mani-2 has been called one of the world’s greatest loudspeakers regardless of size or price. You’ve seen them, and you’ve figured that, just wait, some day… Where can you finally hear them? Audioville. Of course! You can now see and hear the entire...
  • Page 72 Software Reviews Beethoven: Hammerklavier Sonatas Anton Kuerti Analekta FL 2 3187 Lessard: Hammerklavier is the German term for pianoforte — it was originally called the “hammer keyboard.” The expression dates from a time of growing German resistance to the increasing Italian hegemony in music. “Pianoforte” is of course an Italian term. Beethoven, with his usual impetuosity, was hardly the last to leap into the movement. And I have to say that the term “hammer keyboard” seems to suit perfectly the vigorous style of this work.
  • Page 73 paying for it, a detail that subsequently took on a certain importance). The reason I hadn’t heard them: Dorian had reinvented public relations, apparently using North Korea as a model, and when was the last time you received a CD from Pyongyang? But with the back catalog in distri- bution once again we opened up some samples, and we were glad we did. These recordings are done with the usual Professor Johnson flair, and they are encoded in HDCD, the high definition process he helped develop. Felix Hell is billed as an “organ sensa- tion,” and he is all of that. This young German-born prodigy moved to the US at the age of 14…to study at Juilliard! He was 17 when he recorded this collection in Lincoln, Nebraska. By then he had given some 250 concerts worldwide,...
  • Page 74 lowing their secret marriage. Elizabeth’s letters to her sister inspired composer Dominick Argento to write these five songs for the wonderful mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade: Casa Guidi, the Italian Cook and the English Maid, Robert Browning, The Death of Mr. Barrett, and Domesticity. Fans of “Fricka” will find her again with joy. She has lost none of the immense talent that propelled her to the summit of her art, where she has shone since her beginnings, playing all of the...
  • Page 75 large orchestra and a choir of 150 voices, as well as three hand-picked soloists, tenor Hugh Smith, mezzo soprano Stephanie Blythe, and baritone Mark Oswald. They are accompanied by the entire family of strings and woodwinds, brass and percussion of all sorts, includ- ing drums of different sizes, bells, carillons and cymbals. They produce an imposing mass of sound. Despite such an abundance — I nearly wrote overabundance — of timbres, the composer never allows his music to become pompous, and there resides his genius. He pours it on, yet maintains a just balance. For me it is remarkable, at once intense and painful, gratifying to the ear, and poignant for the emo-...
  • Page 76 And the daylight o’er the pavement quite has faded, And the strong [death-march] enwraps me. The moon gives you light And the bugles and drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, My heart gives you love. That text is from renown poet Walt Whitman. Now listen to the baritone in the Lacrimosa —...
  • Page 77 On the other hand, he was able to hear the folk music idiom of his native land through fresh ears. Indeed “native land” in this case doesn’t mean what one might assume. To other Europe- ans “Spanish music” meant the music of Andalusia. If a number of French composers borrowed from it (Bizet is an example, as are Chabrier and Ravel), it was because the Andalusians were much influenced by the French, and so they found its forms familiar.
  • Page 78 Poetics Corporon/North Texas Wind Symph. Klavier K11153 Rejskind: This is one of a long-running series of wind recordings on Klavier by this first-rate orchestra. I think the title may have been chosen at random, but what it contains is worthy of anyone’s attention for both musical and sonic reasons. The first reason to get it, I think, is Joseph Schwanter’s Percussion Concerto. Now the percussionist in a symphony orchestra is not the one groupies mob at the stage door. Garrison Kiellor once said that the triangle is an instrument for a saint (he said the same thing about...
  • Page 79 Goodbye Korbon Is hi-fi — or consumer electronics in general — getting tougher to survive in? Change has claimed another victim, a major Canadian distributor. The company is Korbon trading, which was already five years old when UHF was created in 1982. Ken Simpson had worked at the company importing Sharp when he set up his own company, which he named after his daughters, The UHF Reference Systems All equipment reviews are done on at least one of UHF’s reference systems, selected as working tools.
  • Page 80 “Cool” Gets Warmer You have to be intrigued by the ad: “Home stereo. Reinvented.” We like the way home stereo has been moving just fine, thanks very much, but does Apple Computer (whose on-line ad this is) actually have a better idea? It doesn’t look that way. The iPod Hi-Fi’s name is what’s been reinvented. What is it? It’s a powered speaker with an iPod slot, not the sort of ground-break- ing innovation you might expect Steve Jobs to launch. Is it better than the little powered speakers from Bose or Harman Kardon? Tough acts to follow, we’re sure you’ll agree! Actually the device was the star of Steve’s launch party only because this was the dullest Apple launch since the days of the Macintosh Performas (the other products launched were an iPod...
  • Page 81 DRM in Canada “DRM” of course stands for “Dig- ital Rights Management,” technology to limit what consumers can do with music, movies and other material they’ve bought. In the United States DRM is backed by tough laws. In Canada and Europe, on the other hand, copying for private use is legal. So far. CRI A (the Canadian Recording Industry Association), the Canadian counterpart to RIAA, the US lobbyist for Big Media, would like to see a US-...

  • Page 82: State Of The Art

    State of the Art s music important to all humans? I would say so, and it explains why the first humans began to make music even before they discovered fire, or weapons with which to kill other humans. We know, because we’ve found remains of their instruments. We also know that music is not lis- tened to the same way by everyone. For a substantial portion of the world popula- tion, music has a deep importance, and is listened to with a certain intensity and concentration. That would be the case of audiophiles, of course. For others, it is the superficial aspects of music that are important. I suppose that may explain the success of “Rhythm” FM stations…stations, as one wag has it, “for people who can’t listen to music without moving their hips.”...
  • Page 83 Broadcast Canada publisher of UHF invites you to its other online boutique that offers luxury audio electronics of unique value at unique prices. The legendary Van den Hul amplifiers and preamps The international versionof an acclaimed tube headphone amplifier. And more. www.audiophileboutique.com audiophileboutique.com a division of Broadcast Canada...
  • Page 84 The new Roksan M Series-1 111 Zenway Blvd., Unit 9 WOODBRIDGE, ON L4H 3H9 Tel. : (905) 265-8675 • Fax : (905) 265-8595 www.justiceaudio.com sales@justiceaudio.com Justice Audio SEE AND HEAR THEM AT THESE ROKSAN DEALERS ACROSS CANADA Spinners Sound Kamloops, BC (250) 372-5248 Signature Audio Vancouver, BC (604) 873-6682 Creekside Audio...