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.

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.)