The Golden Ear

Newsletter of the Chicago Audio Society July 2000

Sunday, July 16th - 2:00pm

Dan Miller and/or Kevin Zarow of Marantz America will visit to demonstrate the Marantz SACD player introduced at this year's Consumer Electronics Show. Their high end player, which recently became available, sounded very good even in a relatively small booth with B&W speakers driven by Marantz electronics. Learn about the SACD format and related formats and where the technology is going. Those who've been members of the Society for a while may remember Kevin from when the Marantz classic tube equipment (you know, the Model 7 preamp and Model 8B and 9 amplifiers) was shown.

If you have some SACDs we invite you to bring them to play. We will also play conventional CDs, perhaps including some which are also available on SACD for comparison. It should be interesting!

Our very own Martin King brought a variety of older gear, ranging from AR 3 speakers (the first acoustic suspension loudspeakers), a Dynaco PAT4 preamp, a Dynaco Stereo 70 and Stereo 120 amplifiers. Martin spoke at some length about the acoustic suspension principle and various speaker designs especially back in the 70's. Rich Sacks brought an Empire turntable which sounded pretty good! We also played music through Dennis Anderson's Ohm 250 speakers. After the break we hooked up Alan Kimmel's version of an EL34 based stereo amp by Welborne Labs putting out about 30 watts per channel, a sonic treat!

The rest of the system consisted of some of the equipment often used at meetings: Stan Warren modified Aiwa CD changer (as a transport) and MSB Link DAC connected with proprietary interface cable, Linn Sondek turntable, Cotter MC transformer, homebrew interconnects, and MIT speaker cables.

We saved the best for last: Late in the day Martin hooked up his (Henry Kloss) Cambridge suitcase audio system including Radio Shack 3400 CD player, satellite minimonitors, and (sub)woofer built into the carrying case. The speakers are driven by separate amplifiers with electronic crossovers, and although it wasn't a sound to die for, the system held its own very well. A nice system to go!

Thanks for an informative, enjoyable time, Martin!

August 20th - Ron Welborne of Welborne Labs, demonstrating the Oris 150 horn speakers, along with their electronics. Not to be missed!

Sunday, September 17th, 11am to 4pm. Audio gear ranging from vintage to modern, plus records, CDs, tubes, accessories, you name it! Collectors items and hard to find items. Admission for members will be lower than for the general public; perhaps a nominal earlybird charge for the first hour. Tables available, contact us for rates. Two members may share a table if desired. Dealer tables available as well. Refreshments and our undying gratitude for volunteers who help with setup, teardown, and admissions.

Local high end dealers seem to be doing well, for the most part. While Quintessence Audio closed their Naperville location some months ago (Holm Audio continues to do well in the area), the busier Morton Grove store now features some new lines of interest, including Avantgarde Acoustic.and Graaf. And in a few days a new store, Celestial Sounds , will be opening in Evanston on Davis St. a couple of doors west of Chicago Ave. Ricardo (formerly of Van L Speakerworks) and his partners are getting ready to show off lines including Art Audio, Viva, Horning, Bel Canto, Hamilton, and Plinius.

DVD-Audio is a reality. Panasonic introduced the DVD-A7 and Technics DVD-A10 players at $1000 and $1200, respectively. DVD-A players can handle the following:

Six discrete channels, 44.1/48/88.2/96/176.4/192 kHz sampling rates, 9.6 megabits/sec. sampling rate, 16/20/24 bit resolution. The DVD-A output includes compaitible signals for 5.1 and Dolby Pro Logic decoders and stereo 'downmix' for two channels. Playback times are much longer than standard CDs, depending on resolution, sampling rate, number of channels, and whether the disc is single or double sided and whether it is single or dual layered. A 24/96 two channel disc will play for 230 minutes, a 24/192 two channel for 125 minutes, and a 24/96 six channel for 89 minutes.

Pioneer introduced the new DV-434 ($450) DVD player wiich features 96/24 audio DAC, Dolby Digital and DTS output.

Texas Instruments announced plans to acquire chip manufacturer Burr-Brown, to occur in September.

The site is back online after some problems with the connections. We can't promise it's completely solved, but we're determined to make it as reliable as possible. We're looking to add some other features.

It's what it's all about. Tower Records has some very inexpensive (99 cents each) sampler CDs from Narada and Higher Octave Music, featuring new age, world, contemporary instrumental, and jazz selections. Recommended if you enjoy or are merely curious about these genres. They should be convenient to the entrance to the store; they were in a small carousel with a "99c" sign just inside the front door at one store. And while you're there, be sure to pick up the free Sony Classical "New Directions" CD sampler, which includes music ranging from Andreas Vollenweider to Edgar Meyer to a couple of movie soundtrack selections. They should be at the checkout counter.

If you enjoy movie soundtracks you should check out 'Highlander - The Original Scores' ('The Final Dimension' on the spine), Edel 0028892EDL. Beautifully orchestrated, very well recorded, some written by Queen and Loreena McKennitt.

President Vice President Treasurer Secretary

Brian Walsh Rich Sacks Dennis Anderson Bill Sweet

(847) 382-8433 (847) 843-2554 (630) 830-9142 (847) 593-7790