A Square Deal

Busy, busy.  Still, found time to add the 1982 year of Stereo Review equipment reports to my excel sheet, while listening to new prog-rock- Haken's "Affinity."  Includes such cool items as the Boston Acoustics A40 loudspeaker, Yamaha M-50 power amplifier and the Hafler DH-110 preamplifier.  Again, please let me know if you are looking for info from a particular year.

As has been mentioned, if I were to have a super power, it would be related to semi-vintage stereo and related topics.  The $10 pair of B&W DM 600i and the $7 Rotel DVD player are among my top finds.  On a related note, I had the most incredible stroke of luck recently to meet a gentleman who is a virtual treasure-trove of information for a novice audio historian like myself.

 Long Island, New York audio fans will no doubt be familiar with the unfortunately long-defunct retailer known as "Square Deal."  Originally located on Main street in Patchogue, they eventually moved to larger digs on Waverly avenue, north of Sunrise highway (long before it became the four lane monstrosity it now is).    The main street location was well before my time, and I became aware of the store through my maternal uncles, all of whom (luckily for me) have impeccable taste in good stereo.  One of my favorite birthday gifts was a pair of TDK chrome tape dubs with Emerson Lake and Palmer's "Brain Salad Surgery" and Chuck Mangione's "Feel So Good" on them.  I was probably 10 years old at the time.  My uncles did a lot of shopping at Square Deal before they closed  their doors in 1994.  Some AR turntables and A/D/S/ speakers were bought there, and I eventually bought my first NAD CD player there in 1992.

So, it was as I mentioned a remarkable stroke of luck that at an event at a local community college I met a gentleman with a terrific history working in the audio industry that included being at Square Deal and later at Harman.  I only barely resisted the urge to bombard E. (as he shall be known on this humble blog) with about a bazillion questions, but I was pleasantly surprised when he agreed to continue an e-mail correspondence and answer some inquiries should time permit.  I was planning to limit my questions to what the nature of the audio business was like prior to home theater and what Square Deal was like in particular, but of course I've gotten ahead of myself and already asked about Infinity Kappa series speakers (" . . . Harman Manufacturing did not produce the high end EMIT tweeters. They were done by a company called Capital in Connecticut. This vendor was tied in to Madrigal Audio which became Harman Specialty and now Harman Luxury audio division . . .")  and Sony ES cassette decks.  At any rate, welcome E., thank you so much for indulging my instability and for sharing your knowledge of audio history.  I certainly find it fascinating and no doubt a couple of readers here will as well.

Refurbished NAD C326BEE from Spearit Sound

The weather in the NY metroish area hardly cooperated with rain and high winds today, but the good folks at Spearit Sound got my new amplifier to me in record time.  If you'll recall, I ordered it last Thursday, no shipping charge.  Total cost: $379 (!) And when I got home from work (late of course) it was on the doorstep, box just slightly damp.  And what a box (actually there were 2) it was:

This is the inside box.  There was one nearly twice this size on the outside.  Interestingly, the box is stamped factory refurbished.  Imagine my surprise when i opened it and found that the foam packing was literally encasing the amp and its accessories:

It must be something they do at the factory.  I hope to get some info from the folks at Spearit about the refurb process.  The packing certainly makes the delivery rather bullet proof.  Not too useful for re-using though.  We'll have to see about that.  The amp is spartan in that NAD way:

 . . . and overall I like the look.  Not thrilled with the plastic knobs and front plate but what do I want for the money?  It is much prettier on the inside, and that is what counts.  Remember, no phono preamp and only one set of speaker binding posts.  It does have an MP3 input on the front (although I would probably want to run that through a decent DAC first) and a nice tape loop.  It also has preamp outs which is very useful.  So, I pulled the Sony STR-GX90ES out of its spot, and here is a terrible picture (I promise better over the weekend):

I had an extra Pangea power cord out so i used that, although I think I have an Audio Quest around to try as well.  very little listening was done tonight, just a couple of soundtracks through the Dynaudio Excite 14s.  I will also try the NAD with the Focus 220s, but I believe that will be pushing things a bit.  My initial impressions are good, more to come.  Bottom line, take a look at Spearit, they have some very interesting stuff and some seriously good prices.

  

  

None of the above!

Or below, for that matter.  I ordered a refurbished NAD C326BEE and it should be here tomorrow.  Initial deciding factors; preamp outs and option to use a power cord of choice.  I'll do some unboxing photos, etc., and provide info on the place I purchased it from tomorrow also, if all goes well. I made 2 (!) tapes today, both on the Sony TC-K700 ES.  One was a TDK SA-90, and the other a Sony ES II.  I am gathering some more info regarding the TC-K700 ES for a more comprehensive post.  it makes great tapes, despite my incompetence.

Always hard to sleep the night before new stereo arrives! 

The NAD 3125 integrated amplifier, a Sony CDP-X55ES CD player and the Buffalo News

The A/D/S/ R1 stuff was so much fun to write about that it prompted me to get out my NAD 3125, as it is my all-time favorite amp (so far) and it was the first piece of 'high end" gear I ever owned.  I guess it's high end, I'm not sure how one goes about defining that.  The pictured example is my second.  When I bought my first one in college in 1987 or so (have to check on that date) no one in the dorm had ever heard of NAD, and there were some big Kenwood and Pioneer fans on my floor, so people had been to Crazy Eddie's and thought they knew a thing or two about stereo. In this case high-end certainly can't be based on price, as the 3125 is a killer amp that sold for very little money, even when new.  For a short time over the weekend I had it paired up with a Sony CDP-X55ES thusly:

I still had the A/D/S/ L470 out, so I was running those.  Short review: if you find one, buy it.  I would certainly think nothing of paying $200 USD for another one if it were in nice shape, especially if it had manual and box.  Here is Junior grooving to a Jean Sibelius symphony (or was it a Tone poem?):

My sophomore year as an undergraduate at Niagara University I had a very nice Technics/Cerwin Vega system that fared well in the dorm stereo wars, but I always knew it was sort of goofy sounding.  I even dragged the system down to the Rathskeller to DJ some parties, and it had a lot of cool lights and could play loud.  I don't know how many drunk women asked for me to play Brown Eyed Girl on it.  But it sucked for Chopin.  By this time I had discovered The Absolute Sound, and I think Stereophile as well, so I was itching to get something better.  I was aware of NAD and A/D/S/ for example from my Uncle's system, and I cobbled together something like $800 to upgrade (a pretty good amount for the mid eighties and my beer proclivities).  Not knowing how blessed we were, back then most cities had two or three hifi shops within reasonable driving distance, and my good friend JP gave me a lift out to the Speaker Shop to get an idea for what I could afford.  The Speaker Shop was (and still is thank goodness) located near the downtown State University of New York at Buffalo campus.  Here is their homepage:

  http://www.speakershop.com/

Please visit.  They were very nice to poor college students.  They let JP and I listen to Audio Research and Magnepans.  I was too poor though, to do what I wanted to do: separates.  I was starting from the ground up after selling the Technics set up, and for a little while I thought about dumping the whole $800 on a pair of headphones and a disc player, which probably would have provided greater fidelity.  But no,  I was still somewhat social then (Not now.  Everyone can go straight to blazes now.  Do not pass "Go,"  do not collect $200. I really cannot stand people), and figured I would want to play tunes for someone else (girls maybe, probably, who knows, I don't even) so headphones wouldn't cut it. I did wind up buying an $80 pair of Nakamichis anyway based on JP's recommendation, and they were great.  I wonder where they are.

To make the budget work, I would need to go with an integrated amplifier (no McIntosh separates for me) and I would have to buy at least some of the gear used.  Certainly the cables.  Recall dear reader that this was 1987 or 1988 or both, and the interwebs only really existed then for academics to use message boards on usenet, no pretty graphics of Kate Upton in ZERO FREAKING GRAVITY, no Angry Birds.  No EBay, no Craig's List (what did the Nigerian Scammers do for fun back then?  Oh, right, stuff like this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2617590). To find used stereo gear I had to use the classifieds in the back of the -gasp- Buffalo News.  I recall getting newsprint on my fingers.  Can you imagine what treasures people were selling used in 1987?  I wish I had kept those want ads.  I later also used the Buffalo News want ads to buy a Dual CS-5000 from a guy who was an industrial designer working for McCormack, but that is another story (a very cool one).  I wound up contacting a fellow selling an NAD 3125 integrated amplifier for the princely sum of $125.  JP being the trooper that he was and is, not to mention with what must have been a morbid sense of curiosity, accompanied me to some stranger's home somewhere in Western New York one evening to see the amp.  I barely recall the event now, but I do know that the amp was not hooked up.  It was not plugged in.  It had no documentation.  It did come with a .5 meter pair of Audioquest cables.  So of course I promptly bought it for the fully advertised $125, and as we walked back to the truck, JP commented that I "had big brass ones," which was a very polite way of saying that I was an idiot.  Well played, no arguments there.  Luckily, that amp worked.  Well.  

Later that week (if I recall correctly) we returned to The Speaker Shop where I dropped the remainder on a Sony CDP-208ES (yes, that's where THAT obsession started) and a pair of oak-finish Klipsch KG2 speakers, which just happened to be the perfect match for a 25 watt NAD amplifier.  That's right, 25 wpc.  Here are the details, per the manual:

Date of Manufacture from January 1985

PRE-AMP SECTION

Phono input

input impedence (R and C)                                     47 kilo ohms/ 100 picofarads

input sensitivity, 1kHz                                            2.5 mV  ref. 25W

Signal/Noise ratio (A-weighted with cartridge connceted)  75dB ref. 5 mV

RIAA response accuracy (20Hz to 20kHz)             +/- 3dB

Line level inputs

Input sensitivity (ref 25w)                                       150mV

Signal/Noise ratio (A -weighted ref 1W)                  86dB

Frequency response (20Hz- 20kHz)                         +/-0.5dB

Infrasonic filter                                                         -3dB at 15Hz, 12dB/octave

Tone controls

Treble                                                                        +/- 7dB at 10kHz

Bass                                                                           +/- 10dB at 50Hz

POWER AMP SECTION

Continuous output power into 8ohms*                     25W (14dBW)

*minimum power per channel, 20Hz to 20kHz, both channels driven with no more than rated distortion

Rated distortion                                                         0.03%

Clipping power (maximum continuous power per channel) >35W

IHF Dynamic headroom at 8 ohms                                       >3dB

IHF dynamic power (maximum short term power per channel)  8ohms  50W

                                                                                                      4ohms  55W

                                                                                                      2ohms  75W

Damping factor (ref 8ohms, 50Hz)                             >50

Dimensions (W x H x D)                                            420 x 83 x 288mm

Weight                                                                         4.7 kg 

How would a puny 25 watt amp survive dorm life?  Would the girls in the next dorm over even hear  the opening lyrics of Black Dog blaring from the speakers hanging out of the windows at 8AM on Sunday mornings?  Why yes, yes they would, if those speakers dangling dangerously from the window sill by Monster Cable XP have a 90dB sensitivity rating and that little amplifier has 3dB of dynamic headroom. 

As you can see from the pictures above, the NAD 3125 is small.  It's even smaller than a Rotel DVD player:

In fact, it was dwarfed by every receiver in that building, but it easily blew them away.  It conquered not because it was loud, which when paired with the Klipsch's it was, but because it could play loudly and cleanly, with musicality.  Its' tone controls stayed flat, its' loudness button never got used.  it was accurate and just played music, and what noise it did add did not detract from the listening experience.  I used to love pointing out that the CD player was NOT the amp, and all the noise was coming from the little guy on top of the disc player.  Some of the more savvy accused me of using it as a preamplifier and hiding the amp elsewhere.  Not so.  The NAD 3125 is just super cool in a sleeper kinda way.  Plus it had really, really excellent external heat sinks (a sure sign of being high end, right?  Careful though, they are sharp):

As you can see from this picture, the current example I have has a coveted "Ontario Hydro Electrical" sticker, in the official orange (!).  This example I bought a few years ago complete with box, packing and manual (anyone need a PDF?).  The original one was unfortunately replaced by another, older and bigger NAD after I graduated, a 3150 I think.  I have owned a few other NADs since (not as many as one would think, given my issues), and I have a 3130 stereo receiver in my office whose only source is a Sony TC-K606ES tape deck.  I just had to have another 3125, though, and the one I have now is a forever piece.  I may request that it be buried with me.  They can use it to blast Bullet the Blue Sky during the wake.  Now THAT is a late eighties, early nineties Catholic University Student reference for you.  

This story can go in a bunch of directions from here, such as how the NAD paired with the X55ES, what happened to the KG2s (JP got them and recently sold them- shoulda called me first . . . ) or how the 3125 compares with more modern NAD amplifiers.  If anyone has any preferences, let me know.  For now I will warp this up by repeating- you probably want to get one of these, before they disappear forever.  It is a five-star piece of kit, in my not so humble opinion.

                                                       

       

a/d/s/ R1 receiver and L470 series one speakers

Sorry to mislead anyone.  I had mentioned that I was going to listen to the B&W DM610i speakers this weekend, but I wound up doing something entirely different.  In fact I only got to spend about an hour in the listening room anyway, but it was time well spent.  There is a ton of great gear from the eighties, but I have always been a huge fan of a/d/s/ (which stands for Analog and Digital Systems) speakers.  My uncle still owns a pair of L/1590s and I think they are every bit as good as my Dynaudio Focus 220, if not better.  The 1590s are much bigger and are an acoustic suspension design, but both the 1590 and the Focus 220 have soft dome tweeters with extended high frequency responses that (at least where I have heard them) are clean, airy and never strident.  I had heard the 1590s with Hafler and NAD Monitor series amps, and it was not until recently that I spent any time listening to a/d/s/ amplification.  Well, that has changed, so if you're interested, stick with me!

 I have a copy of the December 1987 issue of Stereo Review that contains a special test report by Julian Hirsch of the a/d/s/ R4 .  I remember reading it originally in the local library, probably over winter break from school (As a very poor college student I wasn't a subscriber.  You can buy a lot of Ramen Noodles for the $1.95 cover price.  Although back then it was Kraft Mac and Cheese not Ramen, which reminds me of a Kids In the Hall skit . . . ).  It's a five page review with a really nice full color photo of the unit.  Hirsch concluded the review by writing: " . . . it is easily the most sophisticated product of its type currently on the market, and it is audibly superior, especially under less than ideal conditions, to any other receiver we have used."  I think that is very high praise indeed for Stereo Review.  They were especially impressed with the machine's "engineering excellence," which I can only appreciate in stereo components from a non-engineering point of view.  Nonetheless, I hoped in 1987 to hear the R4, if not own it some day.  Fast forward many years, and still no R4, but I have managed to acquire two of the R1 stereo receivers, one of which resides with my brother.  The second lives with me, and is the object of our current post.

When I find neat vintage gear at a thrift store (an increasingly rare occasion) I accept that it may be rough around the edges, and certainly will lack a manual and maybe the remote if one was originally provided.  Boxes and packing material are usually non-existent at the thrifts.  If I buy something on EBay however (also an increasingly rare occasion, for many reasons) I am a lot more picky.  I always try to get the complete package if possible, but as you are no doubt aware, that can be pretty tough.  "Mint" rarely means mint, and prices can be ridiculous.  Such is the world of the collector. Every now and then I break down and buy something that isn't quite perfect.  The first R1 I bought had no box, and no manual, but was in nice shape and under $100.  The second I bought was a little pricier and still had no manual or packing, but it did come with the hinged rear cover that this series of a/d/s/ components included:

The cover (unfortunately scratched) is labeled: "Atelier R1."  My trusty 1986 Equipment Buying Guide in the February 1986 issue of Stereo Review (written by W. Burton with R. Krueger and W. Schaub) provides the following info:

ADS Atelier R1 35-watt Receiver

5 AM/FM station presets, manual flywheel tuning and amplifier clipping indicators.  Features connections for two tape decks and two sets of speakers; LED digital display.  FM usable sens mono 1.0 microvolts (11.2 dBf); 50-dB quieting sens mono 1.8 microvolts (16.5 dBf), stereo 21 microvolts (37.7 dBf); THD mono less than 0.15%, stereo less than 0.25%; S/N mono greater than 70 dB, stereo greater than 67 dB; channel separation greater than 40 dB at 1,000 Hz; capture ratio 1.8 dB; Frequency response 15-14,000 Hz +0.5, -1dB.  Amplifier section: 35 watts per channel continuous average power output into 8 ohms from 20-20,000 Hz with 0.1% THD; 40 w/c into 4 ohm load.  FR tape, 10-75,000 Hz +0, -1.5dB, phono conforms to RIAA EQ +/- 0.5 dB from 40-20,000 Hz; input sens tape 50 microvolts into 200k ohms, phono 400 microvolts at 1,000 Hz into 47k ohms; S/N tape greater than 83 dB, phono greater than 73 dB; 17.52" W x 2.76" H x 14.84" D; 17.4 lbs, $500.00.

Whereas the R1 is not a remotely controlled unit (the R4 has a system remote which included quite a few programming features), it nonetheless shares some interesting features with its more modern cousin.  They are styled in a similar fashion, which means very compactly and with clean lines, in a kind of gray-green not that different from the NAD gear of that era.  

As you can see in the pictures above, the R1 has connections for two sets of speakers, and as the diagram on the fold down door shows, the spring-clip left and right speaker terminals for each set of speakers are stacked on top of one another.  There are a series of round push buttons on the face of the R1, and they are made of a smooth, shiny black plastic.  To the left of the radio presets is a button marked "key," except that it isn't a button at all, it is indeed a key or peg that pulls out from the R1 and is inserted in the hole under each preset when favorite stations are being assigned.  I would imagine that this key will be missing from quite a few surviving examples, even though it fits quite snugly and does not fall out when the R1 is shifted in the equipment rack.  

An interesting and quirky (I think) feature is the "Linear" button, which I believe operates as a sort of loudness or bass boost feature.  It is defeated by pressing the button, as opposed to being activated when pressing the button.  When I hooked the R1 up to my a/d/s/ L470 speakers it was obvious that there was a boost in the bass region, and I discovered that by engaging the Linear button the bass sounded more natural, to me at least.  The 30Hz button may provide more boost but I did not play with that one this time around as it was getting late.  In fact, I am seeing that this post is getting a bit long, and as it is nearly 23:00 Eastern Standard Time, this will have to be a part 1 post.  feel free to drop me a line if you are familiar with this machine or have specific questions.  And if you are an a/d/s/ expert, definitely let me know!  I'll leave you with a picture, and more on this topic tomorrow!

       

   

Yamaha R300 Stereo receiver

My wife has discovered that among the myriad items individuals dispose of by donating to thrift stores are articles of the fancy or frilly stationary one might buy at Michael's or some other arts and crafts store.  I think that previously she thought that they were only filled with discarded electronics that only fools could take any interst in, old mismatched golf clubs and stained pairs of Zubas (if you have to ask. . . ). Last we went, she came home with an armful of notepads, magnets, stickers and the aforementioned pastel stationary.  What she'll do with it, I have no idea- but while she's busy with that I can stuff the trunk full of broken tape decks.  Win-win.

Planning for a Saturday trip,  I had gathered up a box of clothes and other items to take in (but I'm keeping all of my 1991 Buffalo Bills Zubas for those still following the joke), and off we went.   I of course had to see what audio treasure might be found and came up with this:

A nice Yamaha R300 stereo receiver, 1982 vintage.  In the store I noticed that the input selector switch was loose, but amazingly, the allen-style screw was still in place.  I am sure the receiver hadn't been at the thrift store long as a few flicks more of the input selector and that screw would have disappeared forever- it is TINY.  So, $24 later I had yet another piece of gear for which I have no real use.  I scrubbed it thoroughly, took off the top and blasted everything with canned air and Deoxit.  Amazingly, I had an allen wrench that fit the selector switch screw and was able to tighten it right up.  The selector switch is made of metal and has a great weight to it, with a wonderful tactile sensation when turned. (Looking at the picture I may have to re-seat the tape monitor button- crooked).   

Darned if it isn't EXACTLY like the selector switches on my new A-S2000 integrated amp.  Even the font is identical (that's branding for you), and the loudness is that same, graduated and very useful system Yamaha also  uses on the A-S2000.  The R300 has a 30 watt per channel amp, but it had no trouble whatsoever driving the Paradigm Mini Monitors to rock levels playing "Clockwork Angels" from the new Rush CD, and the FM tuner is quite good, even without a decent antenna.  On that same note, this one came with the original AM loop antenna.

Gotta love the faux vinyl wood grain.  It's in fantastic shape with no scratches, and the corners are still pretty sharp.  The only mark on the thing seems to be a slight scratch on the tuning knob, which I will gradually try to get out.  The weighting of the analog tuning knob is also terrific for such an inexpensive model.  I would imagine that in 1982 the quality of tuning knob feel was not unlike the sound of a car door closing on a dealer's lot as an arbiter of sales.  I've heard that Lexus spent tons of money getting that closing car door sound and feel just right- to exude a certain quality.  I can definitely see people in Crazy Eddie's during the late seventies and eighties on Route 347 near the Smith Haven Mall making that final decision between two similar receivers just by the way the tuning knob felt.

The spring-clip speaker terminals are better than average as well.  My NAD 3125 terminals are absolute junk by comparison, not to mention they have rusted and need to be cleaned or replaced.  The R300 must have been stored in a less humid environment because the terminal springs look rust-free and snap closed with authority.  In the near future I'd like to do a comparison between the R300 and the NAD 3125, as I think they were comparably priced.  Still a lot to learn about the R300, and I have to re-clean the balance control as it still has a little crackle.  All in all though, pretty neat!  Anyone with any info to share, I would be most appreciative!

  

January 1987

"Few things can set hi-fi enthusiasts squabbling faster than a discussion of amplifier sound."  So starts the famous, (or infamous, perhaps) David L. Clark and Ian G. Masters article in the January 1987 issue of Stereo Review entitled: "Do All Amplifiers Sound the Same?"  The conclusion seems clear- they pretty much do if you can't see which one you're listening to.  I just got a hold of a worn copy of this issue, and I have yet to read it again in detail.  The amps compared are a $12,000 pair of Julius Futterman mono tube amps (the name alone is worth the money I suppose), a $2,000  Mark Levinson ML-11, a Hafler DH-120 at $320, a $548 NAD 2200 and a lowly Pioneer SX-1500 receiver- $219.95.  Keep in mind that same Pioneer would cost you $436.97 in today's dollars, so those Futtermans ain't cheap.  I fall into the category of believing that I have heard differences between amplifiers, so I can't wait to read the article and through the whole issue- there's also a great picture of a Linn Axis turntable on the cover.  I intend to keep an open mind.

Duck, duck. . . goose

They should make little greeting cards for people who are into stereo, like the ones you see in Hallmark.  Instead of saying: Congratulations on the New Baby/Job/House/Sex change, they could say: "Heard you got new speakers, guy! Congratulations!"  Or: "Happy Anniversary on the occasion of you managing to keep a piece of gear for an entire year without deciding that there was something in the midbass that you ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT live with and selling it!"  Or: "Condolences from all of us here at the office on the smoky/stinky demise of your vintage 2 channel receiver."  They probably should make cards for the significant others who have to put up with all of the silliness, at least.  If such things existed, I could have sent D. a card to congratulate him on the arrival of a new pair of Wharfedale Diamond 9.6 towers to his home.  Wharfedale is a a well-respected English speaker manufacturer that has been in business for over 70 years:

 http://www.wharfedale.co.uk/

They compete with some other big names, such as Monitor Audio and Bowers & Wilkins (the speakers they use to master with at Abbey Road). I even owned a pair of Diamond (version II, IIRC) mini monitors from Wharfedale that had been modified by an industrial engineer who worked for McCormack (of amplifier fame) at one time, but I lost them in a break up (I know, I know.  It was a small price to pay for the sanity of all involved, trust me).

D. has been a fan of Wharfedale for some time now, and for good reason, because he typically needs a speaker to perform the multiple chores of solid stereo performance and believable home theater sound all at a non-insane price.  Not many speakers can pull all of those off, but certain models of the the Wharfedale range have been exceedingly good at it, at least in his room.  He had been using a pair of Diamond towers (9.5, I think) that I really liked, probably because they had the same driver complement as my Dynaudio 220s- dome tweeter, 6.5 inch midbass and 6.5 passive.  I generally prefer the tighter bass of smaller woofers, and two or two and a half way designs, as they seem more "coherent."   The older pair were very coherent and had great imaging, with a wide sound stage.  As is his wont, however, when D. saw a great (and I mean GREAT) deal on the big brother Diamond 9.6 towers, he took the plunge.  So, on Saturday, I packed the NAD C350 amp, some cable and the Atoms (see Travellin' Speakers post) and headed over for some listening.  Turned out J. was back from Europe, leaving it ash-covered and financially destitute in his wake, so he would be able to join us.

After a very nice dinner and before any listening, we had to go outside and play some duck, duck goose.  Now, I have no idea why the goose is the one who should have to do all the chasing (although goose, goose duck just doesn't sound right), but we managed to convince D.'s daughter that calling mommy all of the time was the best option (by clapping and yelling: "YAAAAAAY MOMMY!" every time she was tagged) so we may not be invited back.  Why make Uncle J. run?  It's not nice as his Camel Ultrawides fall out of his pocket.  And then there's the problem of my arthritic pancreas.  After watching poor D.'s wife run around the yard a few times, we retired to the listening room.

D. has a great listening space- finished basement, concrete floor, good ceiling height and excellent distance to the listening spot (14.5 feet according to the HT AVR processor).  The Diamonds are BIG, much bigger than my Dynaudios, and they dwarf the Atoms even on stands, as you can see in the picture.  They're over a meter tall, with an eight inch woofer, reaching down to a claimed 28Hz bass extension.  This pair have a very elegant silver finish, that you would think would look out of place on a large tower, but it doesn't.  It's almost as if they look "brushed" even though it is a veneer.  Well done, Wharfedale.  Still, you couldn't hide these things and they are going to take up some real estate in a smaller room. 

Running the show was a Pioneer Elite 110 wpc VSX-21THX AVR, and as you may have guessed I haven't the slightest idea how it works or how it is set up (maybe D. will post an enlightening comment).  I have heard the amp section of that AVR numerous times, and have always thought it sounded quite good.  D. did run all of our listening either in PCM or analog direct mode.  The former used an HDMI output from a Pioneer BDP-51FD Bluray player, the latter the RCA outs from the same machine.  I own the same player, and it has a maddeningly slow load time, so much so that it detracts from the value it offers as a superb sounding machine with Dual Wolfson DACs (especially for sub $300).  He also played back some tracks with the AVR processor deciding what sounded best for "stereo" but I won't comment on that now for fear of committing heresy.  The speakers had been running for some time to "break them in."  More on that later.

One track we always listen to is Chick Corea's: Great Pumpkin Waltz from the GRP Digital Master album "Happy Anniversary Charlie Brown!"  Writing in retrospect, I guess the easiest way to describe what we initially heard using the line from Mel Brooks' History of the World Part I: "Nice, nice, but not thrilling."  Things sounded more or less clean, laid back, with extended but unrefined bass. D. popped in the Yellowjackets after that for something more frenetic, and the bass was certainly worse- fuzzy even.  J. agreed.  Not that the overall sound was bad- I just felt that D.'s previous Wharfedales were better, and he had not really gotten any improvement with the move to the 9.6 towers.  Norah Jones "Come Away With me" went in after that, and being such an ubiquitous test disc,  you know what you're listening for: the smokiness in her voice, the vocals hanging palpably in the sound stage. . .  and those thing just weren't "there."

So, we decided to switch amps.

The decision wouldn't have been such a big deal if it had been an amp of D.'s that he had lying around- if it sounded better, no harm, no foul, no credit cards injured.  Unfortunately, we switched to the NAD C350, which I had brought with me and was positioned on the floor on top of a dead Harmon Kardon CD changer to give it clearance from the carpet, and hooked up with swanky Ultralink RCA cables to D.'s Marantz DV6001 Universal Player.

Moments after playback started, the "there" was there- and D. noticed it before I was even willing to admit it.  Richer vocals, more coherent bass, a deeper sound stage, the whole shebang really came together.  J. put it best- maybe he'll chime in with an informative comment, but indeed, things sounded better.  And then we went back to Chick Corea to find the same.

As we were listening, I thought to myself: "well, I'd be happy with these now, even though they are well under the 200 hours recommended break-in time" and it hit me that it might be the LISTENER who needs to be broken in- to get used to a "new" flavor of sound added by a particular manufacturer's design.  Furthermore, D. had been under the impression that the Marantz was the inferior player, but through the NAD it just sounded great. 

We realized that NAD is also an English company, and that the C350 ( a few years old, now) was not only a very highly regarded 60 wpc integrated amp with a very uncluttered design, but it was from a marketing point of view an amp quite likely to be paired with Wharfedale products, and perhaps the symbiosis we were hearing was planned.  I have to admit the system worked very well together, even though the amp is less powerful on paper.  Did the Tara lab speaker cables have anything to do with the change?  Good gravy, I hope not.  Life is complicated enough.

We never bothered to listen to the Atoms.  At another time, they will be pitted against a pair of vintage $10 thrift shop B&W 600s, along with their bigger brother Paradigm Monitors, but for this night it was just the C350 and the Diamonds.  According to D., the Elite will continue to perform home theater duty, but he is definitely in the market for a dedicated 2 channel amp for music.  Maybe I can find another $125 used C350 out there somewhere. . .