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| Letters -- May 2005 Halcro amps and 220V May 31, 2005 To Jeff Fritz, I enjoyed your discussion of the Wilson/Halcro combo ("TWBAS" February 2004). We have almost identical equipment at home (Halcro dm68s, dCS Elgar, Verdi, and Purcell, Wilson Audio Alexandria X-2s, SME 30, Transparent Audio cables) and I discovered that if the amps draw 220V they take on an altogether different and far superior sound. This is probably how you have your system configured, but just in case you don't, it's like night and day! To my surprise, until Philip O'Hanlon's visit to my home last year, I recall him saying that he had never actually heard the Halcros wired with 220V and was absolutely amazed. It is an experiment well worth taking. Thank you again for taking the time to write about your experience. Paul Goldstone More? May 16, 2005 To Ross Mantle, I read your Doppler essay with interest. Could this be one of the reasons why a Tannoy Dual Concentric speaker sounds more natural to me than a multi-speaker array (with a huge crossover to boot)? Years ago I replaced my Sonus Faber Extremas (much more musical than the Duntech Sovereigns they replaced) with a pair of Wilson WATT/Puppies in order to hear "more," although I didn't know "of what." What I heard "more" of never translated into more musical satisfaction, although I am hard to please as a result of my regular visits to concert halls. Then I started to realize that wooden enclosures, soft domes, and paper cones were in fact not inferior. Quite the contrary. When listening to a Tannoy DC design, I have that same feeling one has when switching from digital to analog. Pity it takes so long to find out that a thoroughly modernized version of what was going on 30 or 40 years ago is in fact the "more" I couldn't find in today’s design. Ronald Dunki The Wilsons have phenomenal speed, extension, and imaging, yet I’m always underwhelmed by their hard, analytical tendencies and lack of naturalness. I guess progress involves going back sometimes to retrieve the baby that got thrown out with the bath water. I just heard a pair of smaller Tannoy DCs at the Montreal show, and they knocked my socks off. The other notable concentric design I’ve heard is the Cabasse triple-concentric "eyeball" speaker, which won Best in Show from me in Montreal in 2003. The upshot of the latest Doppler debate is that crossovers can actually be good, and particularly so in the midrange, since they decrease frequency intermodulation. The concentric designs have crossovers and benefit from the coaxial arrangement of the drivers, which more closely approximates a point source....Ross Mantle Preamp thoughts May 11, 2005 To Ross Mantle, I just happened to come across your "Sell Your Preamps" piece at the same time as I'm having fits trying to decide whether or not to buy a preamp. I too have a dCS combo as my source, the Verdi and Delius. My speakers are not in the same league as yours, but I have a nice system. And just as you say, I was enthralled with the transparency and detail I heard after removing my old preamp from the chain (still am). True, the system has quite a bit less weight and impact than it did before, but I rarely listen to what one might call "power music," and there's no way I'm decreasing this newfound clarity for a weighty veil. I will also probably not be able to afford a Pasiphae for about two years after plunking down the cash for the dCS stuff, but it does sound interesting. I have two questions for you. First, you say that the Delius allows you to attenuate volume but with a loss of resolution. In my understanding, there should be no loss of resolution if you stay above the -20dB mark, as recommended by dCS. From what I've read in other articles on digital attenuation, -20dB causes no loss of resolution in a 24-bit DAC, which should handle -36dB without loss of resolution. Please explain. Second, why has no other audio writer ever mentioned this form of attenuation, let alone the Pasiphae itself? It just seems odd that a product can be this miraculous with absolutely no downside, at least none mentioned. Sal D'Agostino Before the Pasiphae, I considered the digital volume control as executed on the dCS to be the best way to go, and I agree that I don't notice any resolution loss if I keep the attenuation above -20dB. A 24-bit DAC is using 24 amplitude bits to describe the 16 bits encoded in the CD format, so in theory you can attenuate by eight bits before you start throwing out information. On the other hand, the upsampling process itself is not adding any information, yet it sounds better, perhaps as a result of the more gradual filtering. In a way, the digital volume control performs the reverse operation (downsampling), and therefore loses resolution in that restricted sense. As always, the hardware is at least as important as the software. The Pasiphae allows you to attenuate volume without loss of signal energy, leaving the DAC to play with all its bits at maximum throughput. In response to your other question, this was a major scoop for me due to my fine nose for news. OK, actually it was mostly dumb luck. The Pasiphae depends on the fidelity of the transformers, which as I said in my review, have a bit of a hump in the upper mids that is somewhat break-in dependent. Other than that, I believe this technology does represent a fundamental advance for reference-level home audio. Keep saving, let me know how it sounds when you get one, and thanks for your thoughtful questions....Ross Mantle Esoteric too expensive May 3, 2005 To Jeff Fritz, Why anyone would buy the Esoteric separates you wrote about in your April 15 "The World's Best Audio System" is beyond me. With the Ed Meitner's DSD separates available for about a third of the price, I just can't conceive of anyone spending $63,000 on a digital front-end. I do gather that the Esoteric gear sounds fabulous, but the price is just outrageous. Elliott Perchaky You very well may read about the newest Meitner components in "TWBAS." If so, I'll be happy to tell you if they compare sound-wise with the Esoteric separates. The bar has been set mighty high....Jeff Fritz
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