Audio Legends: Matt Polk & Sandy Gross

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audio, loudspeakers, Matt Polk, Polk Audio, Polk Model 10, Sandy Gross

A Trip Down Memory Lane: Speakers That Rivaled the Greats

I was introduced to the Polk Model 10 loudspeakers at a CES in Chicago many years ago. It was, for me, the first American speaker that rivaled the best from England. Up to that time most American box speakers lacked stereo imaging. The Model 10 did not! The imaging was there and so was the low coloration on voices. This was the American version of a Spendor BC1. I raved about the speakers but had very little circulation at the time. Fortunately for Polk, good word of mouth carried the day.

Polk initially headquartered in a beautiful old house in a suburb of Baltimore. Here the principles of the company lived and worked. I was fortunate enough to be invited to the Polk compound. I had little circulation but Polk and company were very gracious to me. (I was traveling with my genius audio friend Murray Zeligman and that may have been the reason I got inside the compound.)

Matt Polk was listening to some Model 10’s that sounded even better than I remembered. On the floor behind the speakers were two banks of custom-built tube power amplifiers pumping out the sound. Yes, amplifiers do controll the sound of a loudspeaker! A good monitor speaker will reveal all that is in the audio chain ahead of it.

The Model 10’s were an amazing set of speakers. It is a classic that will hold its own even to this day. If you can find a pair in good condition, buy them!

Sandy Gross, the marketing guru of Polk, graciously took me to one of his listening rooms. On the floor were a pair of the original Quad ESL’s – speakers that I greatly admired as well. Sandy eventually left Polk and started two high-end loudspeaker companies of his own, first Definitive Technology and then Golden Ear Audio – aptly named. Sandy has a golden ear indeed and his speakers sound great.

My hero is Matt Polk, however. He has designed and sold so many excellent products – from subwoofers to headphones. They are very competitive with high-end products but are offered at what must be considered budget prices by today’s standards. Matt has a been able to translate his technical training at John’s Hopkins into highly practical products. He is able to zero in on what contributes to excellent sound reproduction while eliminating the frills.

Polk and Definitive Technology are now owned by the company that owns Denon, Marantz and Boston Acoustics. Yes, Saul Marantz products are still going strong and Polk is right up there with the best.

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ELAC Debut B5 Bookshelf Loudspeakers

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Andrew Jones, audio, AudioEngine, audiophile, ELAC Debut B5, monitor speakers

Andrew Jones is a very famous loudspeaker designer and rightfully so. He designed the TAD $80,000 Reference One loudspeakers. But it is much easier to design a great sounding speaker when price is no object. Mr. Jones did not stop there, however. He designed some great budget priced speakers for Pioneer. Now he has moved on to ELAC, a respected German loudspeaker manufacture. And there he has done it again, designed budget sounding speakers that most anyone can enjoy if they love the accurate reproduction of live music.

Mr. Jones has designed several models for ELAC. We have chosen the new ELAC Debut B5 Bookshelf Loudspeakers because we want to compare it to the AudioEngine A2+’s. These speakers are about equal in price. There are obvious similarities. In each case, the individual drivers in these speakers are made in-house. AudioEngine assembles their own speakers while the Debut B5’s are assembled in China. The mid/base drivers in both speakers are made of similar materials – a woven aramid-fiber for greater stiffness and lower distortion. The B5’sw are priced at $230 while the A2+’s are priced at $250. Both of these speakers offer outstanding clarity for the price.

The comparison breaks down when it comes to lower bass reproduction however. The A2+’s clearly need a subwoofer, particularly when placed on stands in a medium-sized room. The Debut B5’s are better in the lower end. They have 5.25 inch woofers compared to the A2+’s 2.5 inch woofers. This also means that B5’s have greater power handling which could prove significant in playing louder in a medium-sized room.

Let us look at the prices again. The A2+’s cost a little more and really need a subwoofer. That will add at least a $100 to their overall cost. But the A2+’s have a built-in dual class AB monolithic power amp that is superbly matched to the speakers. In order for the Debut B5’s to play at their best they need to be mated with a very good power amp and not some generic receiver.

Which ones win? They both do. When it comes to stereo imaging the A2+’s are hard to beat. Their small-sized baffles have something to do with that. The B5’s are much larger speakers. They carry more weight in the low-end. Are they as nimble as the A2+’s? An extended period of listening will be necessary to complete any meaningful comparison. Perhaps you might want to share any experiences you have in auditioning these speakers. They are beauties and the price is right!

Audio Legends: Ivor Tiefenbrun

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analogue, audio, Ivor Tiefenbrun, Linn Products, Linn Sondek, state of the art, turntable

A Trip Down Memory Lane – The Master Turntable Builder

I met Ivor Tiefenbrun at a Hi Fi show in the early days. He was demonstrating what became his famous turntable. I asked why he did not put strobe markings on his turntable for fine tuning the turntable’s speed. He told me that what necessitated the need from speed correction were fluctuations in line current. Those same fluctuations would cause the speed indication and, thus, the speed correction to be inaccurate to the same degree as the fluctuations in the line current. He engineered his turntable to be simple, with only the things that mattered with regard to superb sonics.

Does a turntable have sound? In those days, some reviews were still writing that there were no sonic differences between amplifiers. Here was some strange guy from Scotland that was telling us that turntables affect the sound. Even some of the high end press were dismissing him. Direct drive turntables were all the rage, the ones where the motor is directly coupled to the platter without any belt to dampen out vibrations. The press needed an education and Ivor was just to one to give it.

His Linn Sondek LP12 turntable was beautiful to look at. It was so well machined – a processioned instrument that was deceptively simply, yet incredibly sophisticated. Introduced in 1972, it utilizes a suspended sub-chassis design and a patented tightly-toleranced single-point bearing. The design was similar to the Acoustic Research XA turntable created by renowned audio pioneer Edgar Villchur. However, Linn greatly improved the suspension system.

Ivor marked his turntable as the most important component in an audio system. Most people would probably say the loudspeakers are, but Ivor stressed that the overall sound of the system could be no better that what was at the beginning of the chain. People scoffed at this until they A/B’d his table with others in the system. Once again, Ivor new what he was talking about.

The cost of turntables has skyrocketed over the years. The Sondek is no exception. It is still helping to define the state of the art. Fortunately, the ground work that Ivor did helped manufacturers to greatly improve their turntables. Today we may buy some very good and quite reasonably priced turntables that provide excellent analogue reproduction. We are all indebted to Ivor Teifenbrun’s pioneering work.

Glasgow-based Linn Products also produced some excellent loudspeakers, and some outstanding vinyl records which are still the benchmark to this day. (See Exemplary Recordings of Handle’s Messiah).

Budget State of the Art?

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audio, AudioEngine, audiophile, budget, David Berning, Magnepan, planar, QUAD 303, Rogue Audio Sphinx, state of the art

Magnepan is an American manufacturer of quality stereo loudspeakers. That statement is somewhat of an understatement. Magnepan designed and built the original Magneplanar Tympani 1 loudspeaker, which was head and shoulders above anything in its day, at least in the vital midrange frequencies. It lacked bass and dynamic impact, but it sounded like no other loudspeaker at the time. It did not sound like a box speaker and it was not outrageously priced.

Magnepan speakers have advanced significantly since the Magneplanar days. They are still not outrageous priced. In fact, they are probably the best bargain in high-end audio speakers. Not only that, but most of them sound better than many other high-end speakers. The new Magnepan fits into their lineup nicely. It is a near state of the art speaker, following closely on the heels of its bigger brothers.

Frequency Response of the Magnepan .7i is from 45Hz–22kHz” +/- 3dB. As you can see in the graph below, the .7i has a smooth frequency response in a typical room. It drops off somewhat in the high end, mostly due to room reflections. On axis it does not. (Careful positioning of the quasi ribbon tweeter is essential.) The midrange/woofer panels fall off below 40 Hz. This is pretty good bass response for a planar driver. The bass is solid and crisp, but it is not designed for the high impact found in most rock music. It will do quite well for Jazz and classical music.

The curve shows a subwoofer crossed over at 35 Hz. This will allow the overall speaker system to play louder, with greater dynamic impact. But is the sound better? That depends on what type of music you like to listen to. In many cases, the overall sound is better without the subwoofer. Magnepan sells a DWM flat-panel woofer, which does a better job of integrating with the whole. However, it will not have the same impact as a sub with cone drivers. Most Rock music will benefit from the sub.

Speaker response curves do not tell the whole story. The .7i’s are smooth, but they are also very transparent and neutral. They have excellent stereo imaging which is something for which panel speakers are not know. Room placement is critical. Time and patience are required to experiment with the best placement. Keep them away from the back walls and tow them in slightly. Some room damping is required for them to sound at their best – a few pictures or hangings, carpets, and stuffed chairs and sofa will do the trick. The speakers are beautiful to look at, but the spouse may not appreciate expensive, ugly, sound deadening material.

The speaker cost $1400. Not cheap, but a bargain for the high-end market. And a bargain for the such exceptional music reproduction in the home. The speaker price is only the beginning. Amplifiers are required. (One of the great advantages is that AudioEngine speakers have excellent built-in power amps.) What should you use. Good tube amps are the best. Something by Berning or Audio Research, but that would be quite expensive, though the sound of the speakers might justify the price if you can afford one of these amps. I might go with a reconditioned QUAD 303 power amp, which sounds like good tubes. It was the solid state amp that sounded musical, and it is still viable to this day. The 303 only puts out 45 watts per channel RMS, but that is more than sufficient. It does well with low impedance speakers which is the case for Magnepan. Some amplifiers just do not drive Magnepan speakers well.

For a tube amplifier I would go with a reconditioned Paoli 60M – the one designed by Walter Key. It will hold its own with many top end tube amplifiers – not the Berning. If you want a modern, but modestly priced tubed amplifier, try the Rogue Audio Sphinx, a vacuum tube/Class D/ hybrid design. It sells for $1,295, almost as much as the .7i speakers themselves. Nonetheless, it can hold its own with other high-end designs.

As you can see, this discussion of a “budget” audio system may just break many people’s budgets. I do not say you should make such a purchase. You should be perfectly happen with an AudioEngine system. But if you want to venture into state of the are, then the Magnepan system will fill the bill at the lowest possible cost.

Crazy Apple Music

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Apple Inc., Apple Music, audio, AudioEngine, computer audio, high-resolution, iTunes, iTunes Match

Apple Music has got to be one of the most fascinating and exasperating pieces of software that Apple has ever produced. It is a great way to discover new music and new performances. The audio quality is good. It has radio stations, but who needs radio? It has the largest selection of music available. And it the curated playlists are simply superb.

What is not to like? Well. early usees reported lost playlists, deleted songs, unwanted songs added, and problems with album covers. To prevent any potential of this from happening you will not want to enable Apple Music’s iCloud Music’s Library. However, you will have lost one of the great advantages of Apple Music, playing songs without having to download them, which is a boon for Apple devices with limited memory. (More on this later.)

What I would recommend is to have a dedicated server for all your stored iTunes files and play lists, such as an Apple laptop. (You do not want to deal with iTunes under Windows!) Of course, this solution is an extra expense. But if you afford it you can feed your iTunes music directly into your AudioEngine 2A+’s. These speakers have an excellent builtin DAC. If you are playing high-resolution downloads, you may wish to buy an outboard DAC such as AudioEngine’s excellent D3 24-bit DAC/Headphone Amp pictured below. In addition, switch all your iTunes files to Enqueue, a software app for browsing your music, which is better able to handle high resolution files.

Or you might want to use the AudioQuest DragonFly DAC as an alternative.

You could spend more money, but why do so. These are excellent DAC’s at bargain prices. They will plug directly into your laptop, by passing the built-in DAC. Then plugin the DAC into your AudioEngines, bypassing the speaker’s built-in DAC. If you are using high-resolution downloads, be sure to investigate the enhancement software found in iTunes Audiophile Software Comparisons.

Now on to the crazies. I do not have iTunes Match. And for the most part you will not need it if you are using Apple Music with iTunes Cloud Library selected. You can stream the huge selection of iTunes songs without having to download them. Of course, you will not have access to the files you have stored on your computer. Right? Well, in some cases you will. Even without iTunes Match I am finding that I can access my own files. Apple simply goes ahead and matches them anyway. Or does it. It does so for much of my stored music, but not all. It may also mess-up my playlist, leaving out songs. This is not so good for classical music because you do not want to miss any of the movements in a piece.

What is going on Apple? I do not know, but I am willing to put up with it because of the great discovery feature and the availability of so much music with so little storage on my portable device.

Should you try Apple Music? Yes, by all means. The first three months are free. You can opt out of it but that is a little tricky. You can also disable the Connect feature which is left over from Ping, Apple last failed attempt at social media. I am a critic, so I have pointed out some of the drawbacks of Apple Music. But personally, I love it. And Apple seems to be steadily improving it.

Apple Music Update

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Apple, Apple Inc., Apple Music, audio, iTunes, iTunes Match

I have revised my review of Apple Music based on more experience with the software. I liked it at first. Now I really like it. Check my updated review here. I am still disappointed that Apple did not make any provisions for high resolution audio. Maybe next time.

However, I have recently discovered that one may lose some songs in their playlists, even the ones they may have purchased. Check The Loop blog for Jim Dalrymple’s sad story here. Apple helped him get his lost music files back, but I am not sure what they would be able do this for us if a similar thing happened.

Marco Arment has a plausible explanation for the potential Apple Music here. Mr. Arment is very bright and I believe he is on to something. The problem is probably more about iTunes than Apple Music. Perhaps all files in iTunes that are not music files need to be stripped out and put under other websites with different underpinnings. It just might be that iTunes is trying to do too much. Such a change would be a major task for Apple. I am sure they can easily afford to hire more programmers.

Audio Legends: Irving M. (Bud) Fried

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audio, Bud Fried, Fried Model H, IMF, KEF, LS3/5a, Magnaplanar, Murray Zeligman, transmission line

One More Trip – The Satellite Speaker System

I had the pleasure of meeting Irving M. (Bud) Fried many years ago. Bud was the original importer of the Quad ESL’s as well as the Decca phono cartridge and SME tonearm. Bud loved music and quality audio reproduction. He eventually started his own company built some very fine loudspeakers.

I was an unknown self publishing audio journalist with a very small readership. Nonetheless, Bud was very gracious to me. He invited me to his home in Philadelphia to audition his Model H satellite speaker system. It was an audacious speaker system, using the same KEF drivers used in the famous LS3/5a mini-monitors. I owned a pair of these speakers which I imported from England, (In fact, I introduced them to the American public, at least to the few readers of my original AUDIOGRAM newsletter.) I wanted to know how the Model H compared with my LS3/5a’s. At the time the little speakers were not yet distributed in the States.

Bud had done his homework on me, and when I arrived at his home he had the Model H queued up to play Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I loved Baroque music and the Model H could easily accommodate. But they could also play as loud as you might want them with any material. They were a wonderful speaker system.

Bud knew how to build speakers and he had a very good ear. You first start with the best drivers, and the KEF drivers were sensational. (KEF was the manufacturer of the drivers, but they were developed by the BBC after extensive R & D.) Bud basically built a reasonable facsimile of the LS3/5a’s and added his famous transmission line woofer technology. How could you miss? Let me say from the outset that Bud came very close.

Here is a drawing of the Model H that Bud put in one of his newsletters. As you can see the bass module is very large. It was too large to ship so Bud sold the speaker as a kit. The bass commode was a dual tunnel arrangement with subwoofers firing out the left and right sides. Bud used the great KEF model drivers.

As you can see, the speaker system used an outboard passive crossover module. Note the very large caps in the crossover. (The system used a first order crossover between the subwoofers and the bass/midrange drivers).

It was a great attempt at reproducing the full frequency spectrum with the finest of a smooth British midrange. But, alas, the midrange was not quite up to the standard of the LS3/5a, but few speakers were in those days.

What was so great bout the Model H is that it proved the concept of mini-moniter speakers coupled with a great subwoofer, in this case two subwoofers. With time aligned and phase aligned drivers the mini-monitors become almost an ideal point source. This makes for superb stereo imaging as well a great flexibility in room placement to minimize unwanted reflections. Of course, you do get room reflections with the bass modules, but since bass module is mostly omnidirectional it has little effect on the midrange sound. In the case of the Model H, however, Bud wanted to some room refection in order to compete with the sound of the original Magnaplanars which were famous for room reflection (but stereo image suffered as a result).

For me the compromise in room reflection worked. The speaker dominated the room because of its size, but the reproduced sound did much to make the speakers disappear. Bud was a genius at experimenting with various speaker designs and formats. With the Model H he managed to bring the best of British and American design together. (I must say that he did have some help on the design from Murray Zeligman, a designer of many famous loudspeakers. In fact, my friend also developed a modification of the DYNACO PAS3x preamp that revivaled Audio Research at the time.)

Fried’s experimentation with the Model H led me to understand that small point source speakers with well designed crossover, little cone breakup, time and phase aligned drivers, and solid cabinets without resonance could offer great transparency and low coloration, provided their inherent lack of bass could be overcome. The answer was to couple these drivers with a speaker module that could reproduce low bass with an exceptional crossover, either passive or active. Fried proved the passive one could be designed to work very nicely. Today’s equivalent, I believe, is the AudioEngine A2+’s, provided it is matched properly with one or more quality subwoofers.

Hats off to one of the great legends of audio. Now deceased, Bud Fried’s speakers are still being produced, and they are still great reproducers!

Audio Legends: David Hafler and William Z. Johnson

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audio, Audio Research, audiophile, David Berning, David Hafler, DYNACO, Paoli 60M, Waler Key, William Johnson

A Trip Down Memory Lane – Triumph of the Tubes

In the early days we all knew that tubes sounded better than transistors. Well, in the very early days everything was tubes. Marantz made the best, but others, such as Fischer and McIntosh made excellent products. However, second only to Marantz in sound were the products of a small company called Dynamo which sold inexpensive kit amplifiers. They were easy to build, cost effective, and sounded near state of the art at the time.

DYNACO made three superb products: the Pas3 preamplifier, the Stereo 70 power amp, and two mono block power amplifiers called the Mk. III’s. These products have been the basis for thousands of modifications of their designs made by other manufacturers over the years. In fact, the great William Z Johnson of Audio Research fame started out by modifying DYNACO designs. (To be fair, Bill quickly developed his own product designs which are hallmarks even to this day.)

Who was the genius behind the DYNACO product line? David Hafler was the man. He started a revolution with great sounding products at unbelievable prices. His designs were simple, yet very sophisticated. He did not waste any money on adding parts that did not improve the sound. In fact, he tried to eliminate parts to see if the sound would get better. David was a great engineer who had a great ear!

His products are still very much in demand on the used market. In the early days, nearly everyone tried to modify his designs, but few actually came up with products that sounded significantly better. One who did was Walter Key, who designed the Paoli 60M power amp. It was based on the DYNACO Mk. III power amps (60 watts RMS per amp).

The product was so good that it was used to demo other quality audio components. I remember attending a CES audio show where a famous electrostatic speaker maker was demonstrating his new and improved design. It was supposed to be powered by a sophisticated class D switching amplifier. However, behind the scene was a pair of Paoli 60M’s. These amps compared favorably to early Audio Research power amps. I could not afford their power amps, so the Paoli 60M’s fit the bill. (I did purchase the SP3a1 preamp at the time, which reigned supreme for quite a while.)

I got interested in David Hafler’s products early on. I purchased two of his kit products. Being somewhat of a novice I found them fairly easy to assemble,  but they early solid state designs and just did not measure up sonically to Hafler’s tube designs. He was not the only one having trouble with early solid state. Sid Smith, who helped develop products for the great Saul Marantz, was now working on and amplifier design for Jon Dahlquist of DQ 10 fame. He told Dahlquist’s chief engineer Carl Marchisotto that he was running into trouble. When he said that it was so much easier to make a good sounding power amp, Carl said: “Welcome to the world of solid state.”

The DYNACO Stereo 70 power amp (35 watts per channel) had such a sweet top end that many audiophiles used it to power their tweeters (often electrostatic) in a bi-amped arrangement. It was very good over most of the frequency spectrum, but lacked weight in the low end.
Returning to William Z. Johnson, I met him at a Hi-Fi show in DC where he was demonstrating his preamp and power amp on a pair of Magnaplar’s. Bill was the distributers for Magnepan in those days. If was fortuitous for both companies, at least in the way the products complimented each other. Maggie’s sounded their best with Audio Research then and probable still do today (with the possible exception of the David Berning amps.) Bill loved to use the voice of Joan Biaz to demo the products because nothing could reproduce the female voice like Maggie’s driven by Audio Research.

Bill sold his products door to door to certain high end audio stores. It was a tough sell at first. But when people seriously began the listen they began to understand that his tubes just sounded better. Every major manufacturer had moved to solid state, including DYNACO. Most of the review magazines had already bought into the idea of solid state was clearly better. Some said Johnson had set the audio industry back twenty years. But thankfully, Gordon Holt of Stereophile magazine help set everyone straight.

Bill resurrecting the vacuum tube paved the way for a tube renaissance. Today, tubes are very much a part of high end audio. Of course, there are many excellent solid state designs today which sound quite good. But, for me, there is nothing better than listening to a sophisticated tube amp powering a pair of Maggie’s. Do not despair, however, in a modest sized room a pair of AudioEngine A2’s will do just nicely, and they have builtin class A/B amplifiers!

Audio Legends: David Berning

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audio, David Berning

A Trip Down Memory Lane – The Master Amplifier Builder

If there ever was a genius in home audio it would be David Berning. Fortunately I met David years ago and heard his original prototype power amplifiers. Some of my technical friends said it did not measure very well. To me it sounded better than any other amplifier on the market, and today’s Berning amplifier is no exception. That is to say that it is exceptional, and unlike any other amplifier manufactured today or that has ever been manufactured!

Do amplifiers really sound all that different. Yes, and the best ones sound significantly better than the competition. When I bought my Magneplanar’s I soon realized that great speakers reveal flaws in amplifiers. I heard about David Berning having a pair of Magneplanar’s like mine and that he was driving them with his own hand-built custom amplifier. Luckily, I was invited over to his home to hear his system. The Maggies sounded far better than I had ever heard them. There was just no question about that. David was a gentle, modest genius who worked for the US Patent Office at the time. Fortunately he was able to get his own patent for what has become the world’s best home audio amplifier.

Why haven’t you heard of the Berning amplifier? Perhaps you have. The amplifier does not have wide distribution because few people are able to really appreciate such quality today. Today’s source material is not that good, and frankly, not very many people are looking for natural, transparent sound. The amplifier is expensive, but it can justify its cost for the well-heeled audiophile far better than today’s overpriced and under performing amplifiers.

Established in 1974, The David Berning Company manufactures vacuum tube hybrid audio amplifiers based on an unique Impedance Converter that replaces the traditional audio power output transformer and greatly extends and improves amplifier performance. His technology is called “ZOTL” for Zero-Hysteresis Output Transformerless.

Berning amplifiers using the ZOTL technology exceed the performance of traditional OTL tube amplifiers by properly matching the tube impedance to that of the speaker. They convey the musical transparency of tubes without the limitations imposed at the frequency extremes by audio output transformers. This limitation at the frequency extremes is a major contributing factor to what some negatively call “tube sound”. ZOTL extends the desirable musical transparency of tubes to the frequency extremes and provides the quickness of the high and low frequencies that are cherished by those who prefer solid-state amplifiers.

Why are the Berning Amplifiers state of the art? First they sound better than anything else. Secondly, they spec out as state of the art. His latest amplifier is the 211 / 845 Monoblock Amplifiers (named for the choice of output tubes that may be used). If offers:

Fully automatic biasing for either tube.

Output Transformerless 60 watts Class A.

Constant output impedance over entire audio spectrum.

Mono Block format. Low noise floor for high-efficiency speakers.

Both balanced and single-ended input.

Zero feedback.

Proprietary switch-mode power supplies with high energy storage

Full Power-Factor Correction for global plug n’ play operation.

No adjustment is ever required.

What do they sound like? It is hard to describe. Let me quote Dick Olsher of The Absolute Sound:

The other attribute that set the Berning apart from the crowd was its immediacy—a lack of veiling that created a strong sensation of being able to reach out and touch image outlines. This combination of speed, control, and immediacy resulted in a level of clarity only a handful of tube amps could match. It was able to generate a cohesive, spacious, fully 3-D soundstage with excellent transparency and fabulous image palpability.

The amp has incredible speed and dynamics. It makes other amplifiers sound compressed. So much more could be said. If you are seeking the very best and have the money, then the money would be well spent, provided you have the best source material and speakers like the best Magnepan’s (or maybe Quad’s, B&W’s, KEF’s, or Spendor’s.)

Audio Legends: Peter Walker

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audio, Peter J. Walker

The Jack of All Trades and Master as Well

I never met Peter J. Walker, but I met his son. He helped introduce me to the original Quad electrostatic loudspeakers which I eventually bought, but they were not the first Quad product that I purchased. I needed a new amp for my Magneplanar Tympani 1a’s. I was driving them with a Crown DC 300, but the Crown sounded dreadful on the Maggies. Was it the speakers, because the Crown was considered state of the art at the time. No, it was not the Maggies. When I switched in a pair of Quad 303 solid state power amps at the time the Maggies came alive. What I had discovered was the best sounding solid state amp on the market, which is still a keeper to this very day. Why? It sounded like tubes. The Maggies sounded best with tube amplifiers. Audio Research distributed the Magneplanars at the time, and their tube amplifiers made the speakers sound great.

Unfortunately, I could not afford the Audio Research amps. I had just busted my budget on the Maggies. Peter J. Walker came to the rescue. He produced a solid state power amplifier that was stable enough to drive his Qual ESL’s. The QUAD 303 amp only produced 45 watts RMS, but they sounded more powerful than they had a right to sound. They measured well, but they sounded even better. In fact, no other solid state amp came close, except for the Marantz Model 15’s. The 303 were relatively inexpensive and they could drive my speakers in my modestly sized listening room.

How did Peter do it? He was a genius. His circuitry was the key. It was simple, but it was sophisticated. This amplifier is a one of kind and still viable today. Pick up a reconditioned one today at a family reasonable price instead of paying a fortune for today’s outrageously priced amplifiers. You will only thank yourself.

What else did Peter do? He made the full range electrostatic speaker viable. Well, the original Quad was not actually full range because it lacked bass, but it did not lack top end. In fact, its top end was gorgeous. It was difficult to drive, however, Quad tubed or solid state amps were the amps of choice. I did pair my Quads with a set Marantz Model 9 power amps which made them sound their best, but the Model 9’s produced too much output voltage for the Quads to handle safely.

As lovely as the original Quad electrostatics were, they had little dynamic range. They were also very delicate. You did not want to play them all that loud. But, for me, they were almost the perfect Baroque music loudspeaker. Forget rock altogether.

Fortunately, Peter went on to reinvent his speakers. He introduced a set of concentric rings, with electrical signals fed to the individual rings, successively delayed the farther each ring is from the center of the diaphragm. This would have the effect of making the speaker’s diaphragm behave as if there were a perfect point source behind it. Instead of the usual planar wavefront emerging from the flat film, there would be a time-coherent spherical wavefront. This was the genius of Peter J. Walker. He managed to make a large planar speaker sound like a small coherent monitor, while retaining the advantages of a large diaphragm speaker for coupling the sound into the room for a natural sense of ambiance. The latter, of course, requires careful placement to achieve the best effect.

Today’s Quad’s still have the wonderfully low coloration and transparency of the originals, but have far greater dynamic range and bass output. Is it a rock speaker? No. But few speakers can hold their own with the overall quality of their sound.

Should you bay as used original Quad loudspeaker? Please, no. You will just be asking for troubler. I can tell you about the trouble, but I would rather talk about their remarkable sound. Buy a new pair if you have a truckload of money and a large size room. However, you still want to watch the volume control. For me, I would go with a Magnepan model. Nonetheless, Today’s Quads may still be the ultimate Baroque speaker. I love Baroque.

Audio Legends: Jim Winey

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audio, Jim Winey

A Trip Down Memory Lane – The Master Speaker Builder

The second great giant of the industry that I ran into was Jim Winey. I sold my pair of Rectinlinear III loudspeakers for a pair of the original Magneplanars Tympani 1’s, invented by Mr. Winey. (They were called Tympani’s because they were tuned like a tympani drum in an orchestra, with various sections producing different parts of the audio spectrum depended on how tight their mylar skin was stretched.) Jim’s aim was to make a pair of speakers sound as good as electrostatics and he succeeded. In some ways, his speakers sounded better. His speakers did not have to be plugged into electrical current and they were very stable. However, they were power hungry and needed the right power amplifier to bring out their best.

What was remarkable about the Maggies were their clean and transparent midrange. The top end was soft and the bass was tight but not deep. Room size and configuration has a lot to do with their sound, especially bass output. Great care needed to be taken in room placement. The speakers needed to stand a good distance away from the back wall, thus they tended to dominate most any room. The room needed to be fairly large in order for the listener to hear the best balance of sound. Not only that, but dynamic range was not so great because the  speakers were quite inefficient and the bass panels tended to bottom out if the bass was too loud. Classical music, with quick bass transients was usually alright, but continuous loud rock was not the speakers cup of tea.

What was fun about the speakers is that people would walk over and look behind them to see where the sound was coming from. By turning off the lights at night it was easy to imagine that the musicians were in the room if the source material was well recorded. They sounded like no other speaker. They did not sound like boxes. But they were not perfect. Mr. Winey has greatly improved them over the years. However, I have a great nostalgia for original ones speakers. They were large, but I thought that they were very attractive looking. However, they often disappeared into the room when the listener focussed on the music they reproduced.

I want to thank Magnepan for introducing me to great music. Before I owned them I would listen to practically anything. But somehow, the Maggies seemed to demand the very best source material before I could really appreciate the quality of their reproduction. On them, I grew to love Bach and Beethoven, and the best female vocalists (difficult to reproduce) from opera to the bestsinger/songwriters. They helped me fall in love with music all over again.

I would not recommend buying a used Magneplanar speaker. Magnepan builds some greatly improved loudspeakers today that are state of the art in almost every way. They are smaller, more efficient, more dynamic, with much better highs and lows. They fit into almost any size room and, to me, they are still beautiful speakers both in cosmetics and sound. Will they play loud rock. Well, they are a little better at it today, but they should not be your first choice. These speakers are about subtleties. They are about resolution and transparency.

Which model should you buy. The Magnepan 20.7’s are the most expensive model. But for me, the Magnepan 3.7i’s produce the most balanced sound in medium sized rooms. Either one will get you very close to state of the art. (The Magnepan 3.7i’s are picture above). The speakers are made in America and shipped to China and many other countries. They are carefully assembled by hand, yet their price is a bargain. They are one of the fews products worth today’s inflated prices. Do yourself a favor and go listen to them. They may help you fall in love with great music.

Audio Legends: The Great Saul Marantz

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audio, Saul Marantz

A Trip Down Memory Lane – Starting with the Master himself

Today I begin a series on the great legends behind some of the greatest products ever produced for home audio. Many of these legends are no longer living, but their products linger on. In fact, some of their products are still the best available, even to this day. More on that later.

This is my trip down memory lane. I ran into these legendary men by first experiencing some of their products. Many of these products I purchased on my own. I have never reviewed a product that was given to me by a manufacturer. (Fortunately I had some friends that loaned my a few legendary products along the way.)

The first quality piece of audio I bought was made by Saul Marantz. It was the remarkable Model 18 stereo receiver. It was quite a piece of engineering. It used a variation of Saul’s first solid state power amplifier, the Model 15. (The first solid state amplifiers sounded dreadful.) Saul’s amp was the first one to lick the crossover notch distortion problem. Tube amplifiers covered the full wavelength of sound, whereas in solid state, one bank of transistors covers the top of the waveform and the other the lower part. Switching smoothly between the two banks was a serious problem. The Model 15 solved the problem and sounded so much better than all the other solid state amps of its day.

The solid state FM tuner section of the Model 18 receiver was based, in small part, on Saul’s famous Model 10B tuner. There has been no tuner like it before or since. The 10B was a tubed product, bur the Model 18 borrowed some of its circuit design. The Model 18 also borrowed the idea of a builtin oscilloscope for tuning purposes. Take a look at this beauty below. I am sorry I ever sold it.

On the upper left is the tiny oscilloscope. With it you could tune in each station with the least amount of distortion. If you had a directional roof antenna, you could tune out any multi path distortion (signals bouncing off surrounding buildings). Sometimes you had to tune slightly off center to get the best signal. The oscilloscope could be used to measure stereo separation between left and right channels as well as indicate if the signal was in phase. It was embarrassing once for a well known FM station to receive a call from me about their signal being out of phase. I was a novice, but my receive could help monitor the quality of their broadcast.

The stations were spaced evenly across the dial in a log scale. Notice the large tuning flywheel protruding on the upper right. The weighted flywheel made it easy to quickly run up and down the dial as well as to precisely tune in the region around each station.

There were push button switches and rotary switches that offered a complete control center. You could easily monitor a signal being taped by your tape deck with the original source. Of course, there were filters and tone controls, but I was too much of a purist to use them. My motto was just buy the best vinyl that you could find.

This product is very much viable today. Look for it on eBay and other outlets. Forget about buying any other Marantz receiver whose model number is greater than 18. This was the last one that Saul made and it is still the champ. He had to sell his company to Superscope shortly after the Model 18 began production. Some will say that he needed the money to help pay for the research and development of the Model 18. It was probable more because he was losing money on ever Model 10B tuner that he sold, which is His next product we will look at.

The 10B tuner originally cost $500 (in mid 1960’s dollars). The price was later increased to $750, but Saul was still losing money on it. Sid Smith and Dick Sequerra were engineers who played significant roles it the developed of the 10B. Unfortunately, the development fatally overextended the company’s resources. Nevertheless, the 10B became Marantz’s signature product which helped established his legendary reputation.   Several years after I bought the Model 18 I was fortunate to be able to buy a reconditioned Model 10B. It was and is a masterpiece. Reviewer will tell you that is has long since been bested by tuners with much better specifications. In some cases that may be true, but in the case of purity of sound there is still nothing better.

Today you can still purchase one on the used market. I would advise against it. The cost will be astronomical and it will be expensive to maintain. Sadly, in most cases it would not be worth it because of the poor quality in today’s FM stations. (Forget digital broadcast.) However, in its day, when I listen to live broadcast from the Library of Congress auditorium on a Friday night over WETA in Washington, DC, it was the best sounding home audio available. Master tapes and imported vinyl could not match the transparency and purity of the sound of the magnificent Marantz Model 10B tuner!

In his later year Saul helped cofound that Dahlquist Company, maker of the Dahlqvist DQ10 loudspeakers. Designed by Joh Dahlquist, the DQ10 speakers caused quite a stir in their day. Jon, who was an aerospace engineer, helped design the Rectilinear III speaker, which I once owned and enjoyed very much. The DQ10 speakers caused quite a stir in their day. In 1973 Saul and Jon were demonstrating the speaker at the NY HI FI show. Th speaker had the shape of the Quad 57 yet it was a dynamic speaker! There was a big sign that stated: “This is not an Electrostatic Loudspeaker.” At the time, there was not another American made speaker that sounded so alive. One of Saul’s great geniuses was to recognize talent and support it to the hilt. The DQ10 was a forerunner in phase and time aligned drives. It offered very good sound at a very reasonable price.

Hurray for the great Saul Marantz. He invented high end audio, but his products were not outrageously priced considering their overall quality and performance.