From the Vault

Phone calls from company spokespersons such as Marantz's Steve Harris, are generally one of two types. Either 'Would you like to review our new Model XYZ whatever?' or 'Where the hell is our Model XYZ whatever, which you've had for nine months?' Such phone calls are never about reviewing components that are out of production.

It was back in the March 1996 issue of Hi-Fi News that I took my first look at the £6250 Stratosphere ST1 – a turntable that proved out of this world in sound quality as well as name. Now John Jeffries of Reference International (the name behind both the Strat and Lumley) has delivered a complete system including the £4500 LM2 loudspeakers.

American specialists, like their UK counterparts, continue to develop new variations on the available digital technology to produce DACs with audiophile appeal. This review covers two of the more intriguing examples, using some of the most advanced devices available to designers. The Enlightened Audio Designs DSP7000 is based on the 20-bit Analog Devices chip, while PS Audio has chosen an Ultra Analog dual 20-bit converter. What bearing the two choices of technology will have on sound quality remains to be seen!

Jan 1998

If the market for two-box CD transport/outboard DAC combinations has waned in recent years, then the same cannot be said for those little black boxes conceived to nestle in between. I refer, of course, to the add-on accessories often rather optimistically promoted as 'Jitter Busters'. Typically, these rely on a Crystal interface chip and one or two PLLs to suppress jitter while recovering the data clock.

There are two piles of magazines, some 150cm tall, sitting in my lounge. They consist mainly of hi-fi titles that I can't read until they're 'out of date'. Why? Because I don't want to be influenced by the reviews, and I don't always know whether or not I'll be reviewing a component I've just seen slammed or praised. Thus it was that I tried to avoid whispers about the Halcro amplifiers from Australia. Even so, I kept hearing about these 'amazing amps' from all and sundry.

The US company Apogee has expanded its range of open-panel loudspeakers, which began with the Apogee model itself. This was a large-scale design using three separate diaphragms, with pure aluminium ribbons for frequencies above a few hundred Hertz. Three other models are now in production, comprising, in descending order of size and price, the Scintilla [HFN Sep '85], Duetta, and now the so-called 'baby' of the group, the £2500 Caliper.

Carbon is one of the most common and versatile elements found on Earth. In its purest form it has the odd characteristic of being what chemists call allotropic. That is to say, it can appear in more than one distinct form of the same state.