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| Letters -- February 2003 Mike's style February 25, 2003 To Mike Silverton, I've read your very enjoyable reviews of the Nordost Valhalla and Silversmith Audio Palladium cables. Your style is very entertaining! David Brotzen Missing CES info February 15, 2003 As I was reading through some of the coverage of the various CES rooms at Ultra Audio, I noticed that the author occasionally left out the names of some of the associated equipment. For instance, in the Shunyata/Wilson Audio/BAT room, what was the CD player? Same with the Wisdom room that the writer absolutely raved about? These great speakers and amps don't make any sound at all without a source component, and if the sound quality in the room was worth mentioning, then all of the pieces should be identified. I'm sure that your readers would like to know these things. Ken Wilson In the BAT/Shunyata/Wilson room, the BAT VK-D5 was in use. In the Wisdom Audio room, an Accuphase DP-85 SACD/CD player was used initially, but it was later switched to a Gamut CD 1 R or Theta Digital DAC/transport combination. Settling in February 8, 2003 To Greg Petan, I am a recently converted high-end audiophile. Although I rarely admit it, I spend an inordinate amount of time reading the online magazines and forums like The Absolute Sound, AVS Forum, Stereophile, Audio Ideas Guide, Ultra Audio and others. While I have never written to any of these publications in the past, I thought your coverage of CES warranted a note of appreciation. I thought your article was balanced, featured some of the best niche manufacturers out there (not just the most popular or the firms with huge ad budgets) and avoided the audio alphabet soup that so many audio writers unnecessarily rely upon. Keep up the great work, and I look forward to seeing what the new Ultra Audio will look like once you get settled in. I also wanted to make a suggestion for your publication. As we all know, high-end reviewers very rarely issue reports that are critical of manufacturers. I think this is because writers/magazines fear that there will be reprisals in the form of cutting advertising or manufacturers refusing to ship demo gear to reviewers. This has resulted in readers being forced to read between the lines of a review to really understand what a reviewer is thinking -- something that is difficult to do. So how about making your reviews less subjective -- i.e., have each review contain a section that details the three best features and three worst features for gear. I think this protects the magazine from reprisals as every manufacturer will receive three positives and three negative comments. Manufacturers care how they are being compared on a relative basis (to their peers), and if they know that everyone is on the same playing field, I believe they would not react harshly. This would allow you guys to give your readers independent advice -- something that is very hard to find. Keep up the great work and good luck. Andrew Hanneford Thank you so much for your enthusiastic response to our CES report. It was a great show, and I look forward to bringing our readers a variety of product reviews that I found noteworthy and relevant to the current high-end landscape. Also, keep an eye out for CES part two coming later this month. As for your suggestion about formatting a mandatory criticism section in our reviews in the effort to eliminate the "wink and a nod" type of between-the-lines criticism you cite, it was something we discussed recently and decided against for a couple of reasons. First, as professionals, we take our obligation for honesty and journalistic neutrality quite seriously. If there is a problem with a product under review, we take very certain steps to get to the bottom of whatever that problem might be without sweeping anything under the rug or flowering over what is relevant to the consumer. Any shortchanging the readership or trying to pull the wool, so to speak, always comes back to haunt the guilty publication, often to a crippling and disastrous degree. Second, it has been my experience in the last couple of years that high-end products have gotten really, really good. There just aren't as many clunkers out there as there were even five years ago. As a result, I have had an incredible string of great luck and have made some savvy choices, putting products together for review that enjoy a high level of system harmony. For instance, I have a large room and power-hungry dynamic speakers. If I were to review a low-powered single-ended tube amp for instance, chances are it would fail to impress the way it might in a more "friendly" system of a modestly sized room populated with high-efficiency speakers. I have read several reviews by high-profile writers who have reviewed very large speakers in rooms way too small to obtain the proper results. That is the kind of review that begs one to read between the lines because the problems imparted by the room itself -- and the distortions imparted by the room boundaries. One of the first things I did as Ultra Audio senior editor was to have the writers send me an overview of their audio systems, tastes in music, room dimensions, and any sonic biases they may have. This is the way to assign products for review and eliminate as much of the confusion and crap-shooting that leads to erroneous conclusions. I hope I have covered your concerns -- keep the letters coming!...Greg Petan AES/EBU February 2, 2003 To Ross Mantle, Thanks for the invaluable tip about using the Accustic Arts Drive 1 with AES/EBU output. I had abandoned balanced digital cables in favor of RCA a few years ago when I had Mark Levinson digital gear here, but with MSB Platinum Plus and the Drive 1, I was disappointed in the thin sound I was getting. After reading your review -- in hard copy no less -- I hauled an old Transparent Reference Digital Link out of the dead-cable box and voila! The improvement in tone and bass punch was all out of proportion to anything I had previously experienced with a digital cable. Someone should tell Accustic Arts to abandon the RCA output or put in a BNC. At any rate, thanks for the thorough report. If you hadn't stuck a balanced cable in there and written about it, I'd be kicking myself for having spent a ton of moolah on the Drive 1. Your tip was one of the best I've ever gotten out of a review. I look forward to your next foray into Ultra reporting. Regards, Jim Saxon I used a Transparent Reference balanced digital cable for the review, so I can imagine the improvement. I also agree with your thought about BNC connections -- I have heard some interesting improvements using a BNC cable from my Sony SCD-777ES to dCS Delius DAC, even though the Sony only has an RCA digital out and required an adapter at that end. As you probably know, BNC has a theoretical advantage in that it is a true 75-ohm connection. It seems theoretical advantages can translate into real advantages, particularly where digital cable is concerned....Ross Mantle
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