seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (09/11/84)
Joe and Snoopy audition CD players, part two.
In our last episode, Joe and Snoopy auditioned the Revox
CD player and it sounded "hard" and "metallic", but we
weren't sure if the golden-ear types were right about CDs being
horrible, or if it was the room/speakers/etc. that was causing
the bad sound. Snoopy begins thinking about being stuck cleaning
LPs and still hearing those icky ticks and pops for the rest of his
life and gets mildly depressed.
Well, we went to a different store, with different speakers, and
decorative rugs hung on the walls, etc. and hey, the thing sounds
GREAT! (Maybe it was the *coaxial* speaker wire instead of the
Mark Levinson stuff? :-) )
The Windom Hill CD sounded great, dispite comments I've read both in
this newsgroup an in the mags about them not sounding as good as
their LPs. The Sheffield Labs CD also sounded great. (rumor is that
_T_h_e _A_b_s_o_l_u_t_e _S_o_u_n_d is suing them for including a quote of a review
of the LP version on the cover of the CD.)
Then we went off to a third store to hear the new Kyocera DA-910. It
also sounded just fine. We thought the quality of the remote was fairly
shabby for a $1600 unit. And what's the point of having a remote
if it doesn't have a volume control on it? But it did have "fast-wind"
with audible sound which was handy to back up a little to listen to
something a second time or search for a specific spot. If the Revox
has this, we didn't stumble across it. The Magnapan Tympani sounded
pretty good, with amasing bass for a panel-type speaker. We thought
the Mark Levinson ML-III should come with casters, or a forklift
truck or something, and could be used for a boat anchor for the
Queen Mary. (this sucker is BIG, folks!) You could also use it
for raising bread, and for drying out boots and gloves in winter.
(He *knew* people would do that, right?, which is why everything
is gold-plated to prevent corrosion, right? :-) )
One major disappointment was Pink Floyd's _W_i_s_h _Y_o_u _W_e_r_e _H_e_r_e CD.
It sounded VERY strange. And wrong. Yeah, PF is supposed to sound
strange, and it's hard to say what they're supposed to sound like,
but this definately sounded wrong. -sigh-
Additional points Joe (ihnp4!nwuxc!pokorny) brought up:
The wire in the Mark Levinson connecting the amp to the
power supply should have been litz. tsk! tsk!
At store #2, they used two Quad mono power amps. One
had a normal power cord, the other had Monster Cable for power cord.
We had to turn the balance control off center, hmmmm... These
amps were also very noisy. Unacceptable. (Other than the high noise
floor they sounded fine.)
your friendly neighborhood silver-ears reporting,
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/_____\ "plastics"
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|___| Snoopy
____|___|_____ ihnp4!ihuxl!seifert