| SoundStage! Feedback: February 2000 February 28, 2000 Dear Editor, I enjoyed the second edition of the E-Mag. I liked the concept, the layout and the graphics. Of course, the writing is familiar from SoundStage!. I have a Pentium III PC running at 500mHz and a cable-modem connection. Needless to say, the downloads were fast and successful, except for the second section, which refused to display and locked up my machine for a few minutes, even though Adobe Acrobat indicated the section had been loaded successfully. I had to re-load my Internet browser to escape the lock-up condition. Godspeed, ...Roger Lambert February 26, 2000 To Greg Weaver, I have a Yamaha home-theater receiver, Denon DVD player, RBH Sound speakers -- and a home-built rack that I am very proud of. Although I know that power cords should be separated from signal cables, I didn't bother to do anything about it until I read your column. Last night, I had a spare 15 minutes and unplugged my components and routed all the power cords to one side of the rack. Although I loved my system before, it now kicks ass. Improvements? Treble. A substantial increase in treble detail. On music, the decay of higher-frequency instruments was increased. On The Matrix, one scene had more treble information than ever before. It was piercing. The improvement reminded me of your description of the Harmonic Technology cables' "increased lower high-frequency information," but thus far it's been more higher high-frequency information that I'm hearing. Microdetail. Just like you said in your column, I just hear more. For example, background music on The Matrix. I could hear it before, but now it's much easier to make out. Thanks, Greg. I haven't even lifted the speaker cables yet. Can't wait to get home, do that, and enjoy other improvements. …Murry Herman February 21, 2000 Editor, I was dreaming about cable TV the other day. All the programs about things you've never been interest in, all the movies played again and again, the shopping channels and everything else. WAIT a minute! Why we don't have a Hi-Fi Channel? Yes, that's it. Wow, let me see what the programming might be: 1:00-2:00 - The Analog Hour with hosts
Michael Fremer and Art Dudley. "Wake up , wake up Jose!" Dreaming is is free; TV costs money. But maybe someday, some year, some decade, or...who knows? Best regards, ...Jose Garcia February 19, 2000 To Marc Mickelson, I currently own a Threshold T-800D amp, and I have a Simaudio P-5 preamp on order. I was wondering if I would be making a backwards move if I sold my T-800D and bought the Simaudio W-5 also. Thanks for any help. ...Garnet Ward The P-5/W-5 is a wonderful combination, but I would give the P-5 a shot with your Threshold amp before selling it. I used to own a Threshold TA-300, and it was a fine amp. As I recall, it had more tonal color than the W-5, although it lacked the W-5's power and drive, which every amp I've heard does....Marc Mickelson February 18, 2000 To Doug Schneider The Audio Aero Prima CD player sounds like a perfect match for my second system (Manley Stingray, Coincident Conquests). Will SoundStage! do a review on the more expensive Audio Aero CD player, the Capitole? I am interested in a tube player that will upsample to 196kHz, which I understand that unit will do. Thanks. ...Jim Dalto The Audio Aero Capitole CD player is currently in for review, so you'll see an article on it here soon....Doug Schneider February 14, 2000 Editor, Audio Products International manufactures a speaker line called Athena. I bought these home-theater speakers and would like to see what reviews are out on the Internet about them. Sound Dynamics is another division of Audio Products International, and the Athena home-theater speaker system is suppose to be a brand-new top-of-the-line system. Please advise where I can find a review online. Thanks, ...Rob Wise We don't think there are any Athena reviews on the Web, but we have some other API products queued up, and we'll pass along your interest to API....Doug Schneider February 10, 2000 Editor, The Swans/Diva lines of speakers mentioned in your Las Vegas 2000 coverage are indeed alive and well. We will be handling exclusive distribution for these brands via www.perpetualtechnologies.com following the last details of the design and production phases. We should be shipping in the spring. Best regards, ...Jon Lane February 7, 2000 Editor, How do you sleep night writing such trollop [sic] on power cables and the impact they have on music? In our country, to make such claims would be fraud. It's only a pity that someone hasn't locked you up already. Cheers, ...Max Dirnberger What can we say? They work!...Marc Mickelson February 3, 2000 Editor, Thanks a lot for your useful and entertaining site. With the (very sad) death of Audio magazine, sites like yours have become even more important to me. I enjoy your equipment reviews, and particularly Greg Weaver's column. I also subscribe to Stereophile, but there's only so much silliness I can take at a single sitting. Your reviewers seem to be passionate yet rational, and your equipment reviews always tell me what I need to know. In fact, I'm shortly going to be getting a pair of Monarchy Audio SM-70 amps --I'm curious to try class A for the first time. I'm also in the market for a new CD player. How 'bout a review of the Musical Fidelity X-RAY? Thanks again, ...Doug Burkett February 2, 2000 Dear Editor, Would it be possible for one of your esteemed writers to write a small piece on how to read measurements? I have yet to find a publication which explains how to use these graphs to my advantage. Thanks, ...Dave Orwick We actually do have a document that gives information on interpreting our measurements. It's linked into the measurements page....Marc Mickelson February 1, 2000 To Doug Schneider, Thanks for a great review of the Mirage MRM-1s. I certainly agree with your comment: "Many times a small bookshelf-sized monitor is the best bet in a smaller room and will give much better performance in that type of space." But looking for that magical minimonitor, I recently found a problem in my small room with a similarly voiced speaker, the B&W Nautilus 805. Like the MRM-1, it has that broad upper-bass elevation to make it sound bigger than it is, but I found that this was counterproductive because its bass sounded heavy and sometimes boomy, probably reinforcing a room resonance. And this was with the speaker almost six feet out into the room! The Mirage's measurements in Audio Ideas Guide (very similar to the NRC's) made me look elsewhere. I replaced the Nautilus 805 with a Nautilus 804; the boom was gone and I am a happy customer. ...Vladimir Dorta |