Sound

Focal Audio, aka JM Lab, may not be a well-known name in the U.S., but it is France's largest speaker manufacturer. I had Focal Mini Utopia speakers in my reference two-channel system for years and the Focal Grande Utopia EM ($180,000 per pair) is the best sounding speaker I've ever heard.

Maybe that's why the Focal Dome 5.1 satellite/subwoofer system ($2,595 MSRP) review by Michael Trei in Sound & Vision magazine piqued my interest.

The Dome replaces the Sib and Cub 5.1 system I favorably reviewed a few years ago. Unlike the Asian-built Sib and Cub, the Domes are manufactured at Focal's factory in Saint-Etienne, France.

The Dome 5.1 package is Focal smallest home speaker system yet. Trei writes: "the Dome satellite's cast-aluminum enclosure feels solid enough to withstand being run over by a small car." Each satellite speaker has a 4-inch woofer and a 1-inch aluminum/magnesium inverted dome tweeter, similar to the one Focal uses in its upscale Profile and Electra S models. Optional stands are available for the sats.

The matching cylindrical, rounded-top subwoofer has a single downward-firing 8-inch woofer and a built-in 100-watt amplifier.… Read more

It sure looks expensive, and at $135,000, the Goldmund Eidos Reference Blu-ray player is definitely in the upper crust of Blu-ray players in terms of cost.

Hand-built in Geneva, the Eidos Reference Blue is a truly rarefied design. Limited in production to 50 units, dawdlers will be left having to make do with a plain vanilla Denon or Sony Blu-ray player.

Will the Goldmund outperform the Oppo BDP-83 Blu-ray player we raved about a few days ago? I have no idea, but I do know that a $20 Casio watch keeps time just as well as a Patek Philippe … Read more

Oppo's new BDP-83 player spins just about every type of "silver" disc under the sun: CD, SACD, DVD-Audio, DVD-Video and Blu-ray. Cool!

I brought a stack of SACDs and DVD-A discs to the CNET listening room to check out the BDP-83 with our Denon AVR-3808CI receiver and Aperion Intimus 4T Hybrid SD 5.1 speaker/subwoofer system. I'll cover the high-resolution audio performance of the Oppo here, read Matthew Moskovciak's full CNET review for the rest of the story.

"The Allman Brothers Band at Fillmore East," recorded on March 12 and 13, 1971, was a trip. Sure, the original mix was stereo, but I loved the way the SACD's 5.1 mix opened up and clarified the sound, especially the band's two drummers, Jai Johanny Johanson and Butch Trucks. The entire rhythm section's dynamics and pulse came alive on SACD, it's more in the background on CD.

On one hand the 5.1 mix is fairly subtle, but the sound's open quality and spaciousness was remarkable. The sense of being in the 2,000 seat concert hall was a thrill that you can't get with stereo. And no, you can't get there by playing stereo in Dolby Pro Logic II, a discrete 5.1 channel mix, if it's any good, will always sound better.

Led Zeppelin's "How the West Was Won" double DVD-A set was very different. How? The band's dynamic energy was even more present and the front three speakers soundstage depth and dimensionality were better than the Allman Brothers' disc. Too bad the bass was thicker and muddier, which was probably the way it sounded at the 1972 Zep shows. I didn't like the surround mix much, mostly because I couldn't understand why Jimmy Page's guitar was sometimes coming out of the surround speakers. Strange. But it's still the best sounding Zeppelin disc I own.… Read more

You're "feelin' groovy" but don't have a turntable or a place to plug one in? No problem, the Vinyl Killer, a.k.a., the Soundwagon can play your tunes!

Fidelity isn't a strong suit of the little toy and groove tracking can be hit or miss, but the little machine is a great gimmick. That it works at all is kind of amazing. I doubt anyone could devise a CD Killer to play a CD by driving over the pits.

I actually sold a few of these things back in the 1980s when I was … Read more

Vinyl is back, big time, but the fact is most folks, probably close to 99 percent of the under 40-set, haven't heard records.

For them, music is about portability and vinyl is a stay-at-home deal. Vinyl has more of a hands-on work ethic: you've got to cue the tonearm, lower the "needle," and when the side's over, turn it over or play another LP. Digital requires almost nothing from you; no wonder it's dominated the music scene for the last couple of decades.

Me, I'm having something of a vinyl fling right now. I've always owned a turntable, but there were times I played only CDs for months on end. I guess I didn't want to deal with the extra work of playing vinyl. Sad, but true.

As for LP vs. CD comparisons, I didn't do any. Trust me, you don't have to be a golden-eared audiophile to notice the two formats sound very different. Records are "warmer" and sound more like the sound of real instruments and voices; CDs almost always make them more detailed and brighter-sounding than they are in real life. … Read more

Tone Audio's Bob Gendron scored advance copies of "The Beatles Stereo Box Set" and "The Beatles Mono Box Set" of the complete Beatles catalog. Four years in the making, Gendron thinks the remasters are a feast for the ears.

Tone Audio is an audiophile Web site, so when I read Gendron's claims of "Near-miraculous improvements in the key areas of information retrieval, hidden details, palpable physicality, expanded midrange, transient presence, and frequency response" to the remastered sound, I was jazzed. Bass, never a strong suit on Beatles recordings, has been improved, so we get to hear more oomph from Paul McCartney's bass and Ringo Starr's percussion. I can hardly wait.

Gendron seems to favor the mono box, mostly because the Beatles and their producer, George Martin, lavished their attention on the mono mixes of the original albums; stereo was an afterthought. Me, I'm a stereo kind of guy, so I'll start with the stereo set. And yes, I'll report back after I've had time to mull over the sound for myself. The Rolling Stones' recent remasters are nothing to write home about, that's why I've remained mum about them. Remastering, all by itself, is no guarantee of improved sound quality.… Read more

I went to Sirius XM's New York City headquarters on Wednesday to see what's new. They showed a bunch of docking units and the like, but the only new product that got my juices flowing was a new home tuner, the sleek-looking SR-H2000.

You might think a brand new Sirius tuner (not a table radio) intended to be used with a stereo or home theater system would also offer access to all XM channels, but that's not the case. Sirius subscribers can add "The Best of XM" package for a small upcharge on their monthly … Read more

Bass, really high-quality bass, is something I associate with large speakers and subwoofers. Smaller models generate significantly less bass output, but thanks to clever design it is possible to eek out more bass than little boxes used to make. But trust me, you can't predict bass performance by reading speaker specifications. Listening is the only way to learn what a speaker sounds like.

Speaker designers use all sorts of tricks involving bass ports and equalization techniques to boost bass, but bass quality, if not quantity, suffers in direct comparison to larger designs. Right, size still matters.

That may change: Atlantic Technology and Solus/Clements, two American speaker manufacturers, announced that they have joined forces to develop, market, and license a revolutionary new loudspeaker design protocol capable of delivering deep, low-distortion bass at high volume levels. This technology, dubbed H-PAS, (hybrid pressure acceleration system) will allow smaller cabinets and small drivers to achieve levels of performance "...normally associated with much larger speaker systems."

The new patent-pending system combines elements of several technologies: bass reflex, inverse horn, and transmission line in a unique cabinet design. H-PAS does not require the use of special drivers, any kind of onboard electronics or outboard equalization--it is a purely passive system, completely compatible with all amplifiers and receivers. … Read more

I bought my first hi-fi with money I made working at a supermarket when I was 16 years old.

The system had a Garrard turntable, XAM amplifier, and XAM speakers. The system cost $106 in 1965, that would be more like $600 to $700 in 2009 dollars.

Man, that little system ruled! My records came to life like never before. A month or two after I bought the system I accidentally crushed the "needle," so I bought a better phono cartridge and my records sounded even better. I became an audiophile! It didn't take long before I … Read more