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Details: Written by: Ron Doering; Created: 15 August 2012

Gallo Classic CL-2 Anthony Gallo Acoustics = balls

I don’t mean to be rude, but this review offers a good opportunity to let you know how I remember audio brands: usually, by an association with what put them on my own audio map, and disregarding whether the association is any longer valid. More examples:

Linn = turntables

Sony = clock radios

Krell = class-A amps

Conrad-Johnson = nice, champagne-hued faceplates and controls

JBL = PA systems

You get the idea. Unfair? Sure, but not in the case of founder and design guru Anthony Gallo, who began his business in the late 1980s with two ideas, one of which, the Cylindrical Diaphragm Transducer (CDT), is part of the speaker reviewed here. The other idea, as radical today as it was then, is the spherical shape of Gallo’s original Nucleus model, made of anodized aluminum, and still to be found in Gallo’s Reference line. As you can imagine, forming a sphere from a single disc of aluminum probably ain’t the easiest thing to do. Yet the Reference AV, comprising four such spheres per speaker, costs only $3000 USD per pair. This suggests that price concerns can’t be the only reasons Gallo would create a relatively new line of more conventional box speakers, the Classicos. In fact, with models priced from $495 to $2495/pair, the Classico line offers an easy introduction to the Gallo family while avoiding the loss of customers who may not be ready for the Reference models’ dramatic visual statement.

Details: Written by: Ron Doering; Created: 01 August 2012

Polk LSiM705 Starter home. Starter wife. Starter husband. Starter friends. How about a little starter salad? More starters are listed in Urbandictionary.com. Look ’em up -- it’s a hoot. You can pretty much have a starter anything, but keep in mind the subtle difference between, say, one’s first set of speakers and a starter pair. To speak of the former is to wax nostalgic over the experience, when all was new and interesting. One may even wish to have that first pair back again, and perhaps regret ever having gotten rid of them. You may no longer still have your "firsts," but you may not have planned it that way. On the other hand, the whole point of a pair of starter speakers is that, as soon as you can, you’ll trade up to better ones and never look back. You knew this when you bought them. There is never true pride to be taken in acquiring or owning a "starter." The starter is there to serve only until life gets rosier. When it does, one begins dating the hot young thing half one’s age.

Details: Written by: Ron Doering; Created: 15 July 2012

Parasound Zphono.USB Of the many mysteries that puzzle me, a particularly unfathomable one is the ever-growing product category of the cheap, all-parts-included, turnkey (and turkey) record player partnered with an equally cheap built-in A/D converter. Yes, I get what it’s supposed to do. What I don’t understand is the point of the whole macabre creation. Is it really a step forward to make a lousy digital transcription of a perfectly good LP by chopping its signal to pieces with a down-market digitizing device? How many wrongs can be put together before the right appears?

Details: Written by: S. Andrea Sundaram; Created: 01 July 2012

Trends Audio PA-10.1D Trends Audio established its brand by producing low-powered digital amplifiers. These were based on the Tripath chips (very popular among DIYers), implemented with quality parts, given adequate power supplies, put in nice-looking boxes, and shipped out the door at reasonable prices. These little amps include a volume knob that can be switched in or out of circuit via a jumper, making them a simple way to connect a line-level source to your speakers. Building on that success, Trends has expanded its product range to include sources, preamplifiers, speakers, even cables -- everything you need for a small hi-fi system.

Details: Written by: Sathyan Sundaram; Created: 15 June 2012

Silverline Minuet Silverline Audio, based in Walnut Creek and Concord, California, are best known for their several lines of loudspeakers (they also make interconnects and speaker cables). Their current speaker lineup includes seven stand-mount models, two center-channels, and six floorstanders, with prices ranging from $699 to $35,000 USD per pair. Silverline states on their website that “Our loudspeakers are not made just for great sound, but are intended to be associated with the finer things in life. Our loudspeakers are made for those who are concerned with aesthetics as well as sound.” Indeed, as I unboxed my review samples of that lowest-priced model, the Minuet Supreme Plus ($699/pair), the first thing I noticed was how good they looked and felt. A SoundStage! Network factory tour in 2006 pointed out that Silverline maintains close relationships with a number of nearby cabinetmakers, whom they hire to build their enclosures.

Details: Written by: Vince Hanada; Created: 01 June 2012

Paradigm Sub 12 Great Buy If you’re an audio or home-theater enthusiast, you’ve undoubtedly heard of Paradigm, based in Ontario, Canada -- one of the largest speaker manufacturers in the world. With the introduction of the Series 7 Monitors, an extensive line of bookshelf, tower, center-channel, and surround models, it’s only natural that Paradigm would also include a new line of subwoofers, and they have -- the Series 7 Monitor Sub 8, Sub 10, and Sub 12, the model number in each case indicating the diameter, in inches, of the sub’s single driver. Although I reviewed the Monitor Sub 12 last February, in my review of the Series 7 Monitor 11-based surround-sound system, I wanted to more fully explore the Sub 12. I asked Paradigm for a second, additional review sample, their Perfect Bass Kit (PBK), and their PT-2 Wireless Transmitter. They enthusiastically obliged.

Details: Written by: Vince Hanada; Created: 15 May 2012

Cambridge Azur DacMagic Great Buy Digital-to-analog converters have been popular almost since the introduction of the Compact Disc, in 1983. I can understand why DACs were needed in those early days -- CD players’ built-in DACs were of dubious quality, and manufacturers cut corners to bring costs down. But as CD players improved, I couldn’t be bothered with an external DAC, and the two-box solution of CD transport and separate DAC introduced another problem: jitter, or timing errors in the transfer of data between transport and DAC. When jitter reaches a certain level, it becomes audible.

These days, with the diminishing use of CD players and the growing use of computers for storing and playing recordings, standalone DACs have again become important for good sound, especially the playing of high-resolution recordings. SACDs are becoming increasingly scarce, DVD-Audio is dead, and Blu-ray audio has not picked up the hi-rez music banner in any significant way. The simplest way to get hi-rez music these days is to download it from websites such as HDtracks, and play it on a computer through your audio system.

The DAC reviewed here is Cambridge Audio’s Azur DacMagic Plus, a follow-up to their highly acclaimed Azur DacMagic. The price has gone up a couple hundred bucks, to $650 USD, and some worthwhile enhancements have been added.

Details: Written by: Hans Wetzel; Created: 01 May 2012

Audioengine 5+ Great Buy It’s curious to me that, as a generality, the more money you spend at a restaurant, the less you get. Yes, the coeur de gigot d’agneau en gasconnade and accompanying Bordeaux performed the most tuneful tandem that my taste buds will witness for the foreseeable future. Yes, my plate’s presentation was more artfully done than I could have managed on my own. And most important, yes, two hours later I was once again hungry, my wallet felt uncomfortably light, and I experienced a growing sense of guilt and regret. I imagine that, for many, this kind of frivolity is reserved for the most special of occasions, infrequent events in the repetitive mundanity of daily life. In contrast to such transient moments of profligacy, I find that I derive the most pleasure from more utilitarian investments: those marked by a maximization of value of which Jeremy Bentham would be proud.

Apropos of this philosophy, it’s worth noting that the modest entryway to high-end audio is crowded with false prophets who promise high performance and convenience at low prices. More often than not they fully deliver neither, and the design compromises of a given product overshadow any apparent strengths. The folks at Audioengine, however, have exhibited a knack for producing loudspeakers that marry quality and convenience at the expense of nothing. It’s as if their audio engineers and their MBAs actually bothered to ask not only what consumers wanted and how much they were willing to spend for it, but also how the product would be used day to day. Commonsense stuff, this -- and yet remarkably uncommon.

Details: Written by: Rad Bennett; Created: 01 April 2012

Orb Audio Mod1 Great Buy Most speaker manufacturers market a full line of speakers, or even several lines, each line serving a different market niche. Though the models within a line usually vary in size, they often share the same design principles and some of the same parts. Orb Audio makes precisely one model: the Mod1 ($239 USD per pair), a nearly spherical speaker that, at 4 3/16"W x 4 3/16"H x 4 7/8"D, is a little bigger than a softball.

Orb offers many different configurations of single and multiple Mod1s. The Mod2 is simply a stack of two Mod1s, joined by a short desktop or floor stand; from there, it or any Orb system can be upgraded to take one of many different configurations. You can start with a pair of Mod1s, then add to them as your budget allows. But the next thing you’ll probably want to add will be a subwoofer, as the Mod1, with its single 3" driver, is understandably shy on bass. The largest configuration I’ve seen is the Mod4, which is four Mod1s in a row. The speakers come in standard finishes of Metallic Gloss Black or Pearl White; for another $60 per pair, they can be finished in Hand Polished Steel, Antiqued Bronze, or Antiqued Copper.

Details: Written by: Hans Wetzel; Created: 15 April 2012

Musical Fidelity M1DAC In the distant wake of the Trojan War, Odysseus, king of Ithaca, returned home in a journey of the most circuitous sort. Famed for his cunning, as exemplified by the Trojan Horse, and for his blinding of a certain Cyclops named Polyphemus, he navigated myriad obstacles in his ten-year trip. These included the stupor-inducing Lotus-Eaters, the giant, cannibalistic Laestrygonians, the six-headed Scylla, and the whirlpool Charybdis. The seas were not always rough for the Ithacan, however; Odysseus also earned the affections of the nymphs Calypso and Circe, minor female deities of the Greek variety.

Unable to convince Odysseus to remain with her, Circe kindly warned him of perhaps his most beguiling hurdle on his route home: “You will come to the Sirens, who enchant all who come near them. If anyone unwarily draws in too close and hears the singing of the Sirens, his wife and children will never welcome him home again, for they sit in a green field and warble him to death with the sweetness of their song. . . . Therefore pass these Sirens by, and stop your men’s ears with wax that none of them may hear; but if you like, you can listen yourself . . .”

Equipment Reviews

Anthony Gallo Acoustics Classico CL-2 Loudspeakers

Polk Audio LSiM705 Loudspeakers

Parasound Zphono.USB Phono Stage/Analog-to-Digital Converter

Trends Audio PA-10.1D Headphone Amplifier/Preamplifier

Silverline Audio Minuet Supreme Plus Loudspeakers

Paradigm Series 7 Monitor Sub 12 Subwoofer

Cambridge Audio Azur DacMagic Plus Digital-to-Analog Converter

Audioengine 5+ Active Loudspeakers

Orb Audio Mod1 Loudspeakers / Super Eight Subwoofer / Booster Mini Integrated Amplifier

Musical Fidelity M1DAC Digital-to-Analog Converter