High-Performance Audio Reviews
Music News, Show Reports, And More!
Celebrating 29 Years Of Service To Music Lovers
Over $24,000 In Prizes!
Members of the Enjoy
the Music.com Mailing List were eligible to win one
of the below prizes. Not a member of our mailing list? Ensure a chance to win
within one of our future contests by clicking the link at the bottom of
this page.
Note to journalists, press release is
located here.
Green Mountain Audio's Pico Grande is the largest of the company's new Pico Series of slim towers. A key element to the design is time-coherency, with all
of the four driver's output reaching the listener's ear at the same time. The small footprint of this three-way loudspeaker belies the large sound it produces. A 1-inch
fabric dome tweeter with its own rear chamber, 5.25" ultra-low mass midrange made of graphite and wood fiber, and a pair of 6.5-inch low-mass Nomex-fiber woofers within their separate chamber describe just some of the designer's intentions. Green Mountain Audio has engineered their Pico Grande to adhere to a tight 47Hz to 20kHz frequency
response with a mere +/- 0.75dB deviation. Sensitivity is 89dB/W/m at 5 Ohms
with only a +/-1 Ohm variation across the frequency spectrum. As for phase, a shift of only +/- 3 degrees acoustically from 220Hz to
8kHz has been measured and does not shift with varying volume levels.
MSRP: $7,495 www.GreenMountainAudio.com
Environmental Potentials North America (EPNA) is pleased to award an EP-2450 and EP-2050 to two lucky
Enjoy the Music.com
mailing list members. The EP-2450 Home Theater Power Supply is a robust industrial design that includes three patented circuits by a leading power quality R&D organization. The unit will protect home entertainment assets from surge events while tracking, filtering, absorbing, and dissipating high frequency resonance from the system with no shunt to ground. The EP-2050 Whole House PQ Filter and Surge Absorber are residential models of the industrial EP-2000 patented waveform correction absorber. EPNA claims this is the most aggressive power quality filtration technology available and will remove all system anomalies at 3kHz or greater, without residual byproduct or shunt back into the system.
MSRP: Environmental Potentials North America EP-2450 and EP-2050 are $750 each, for a total of $1,500. Two lucky winners will be receiving this prize package for a grand total prize giveaway of $3,000. www.ep2000.com
A totally tubular
linestage from ModWright Instruments will be received to one of our Mailing List Members! The ModWright SWL 9.0SE tube
linestage has four inputs, two sets of outputs, and home theater bypass mode. Providing a tradition of exceptional value, performance and service, ModWright Instruments' SWL 9.0SE features a power supply that is choke input current regulated, regulated DC heaters, and discrete FET regulated B+ voltages. The critical gain stage is fixed battery bias... Mu type gain/buffer stage while volume
adjustment is via an Alps motorized potentiometer. Other top quality parts include FRED and Schottky diodes, metal film Vishay resistors, ceramic tube sockets and
high-quality film caps.
MSRP: $2,200 www.ModWright.com
AAA-Audio.com
will be sending an Enjoy the Music.com
Mailing List member their Dussun V6i hyper 'Class A' integrated amplifier!
This over 65 lb. beauty features a true dual-mono design to insure each
channel delivers 150 watts per channel (8 ohms, 300 watts at 4 ohms) with wide
stereo separation. Furthermore, the preamplifier and power amplifier stages
may be used independently. With a very low noise toroidal transfer and 32,000
MFD of filter capacitance, there is ample power delivery available. Minimal
internal wiring provides an ultra-short signal path, thereby keeping the
original signal pristine. A microprocessor controls the passive volume
potentiometer and Van den Hul CS-122 Hybrid loudspeaker cable transfers power
from the circuit board to the loudspeaker binding posts.
MSRP: $2,098 www.AAA-Audio.com
One
lucky winner will receive a set of Sound Mechanics C100 cones and C101 Bases.
The curvature and the internal dampening of the C100 cone's material are designed for ultra linear performance.
Sound Mechanic's C101 base is a universal support designed for linear performance to improve metal cone performance.
The same winner will receive an Acrolink 6N-P4030PC power cord while another
winner will get two cords! The Acrolink 6N-P4030PC that features true 6N
pure copper measured comprehensively. Glow Discharge Mass Spectrometry, an extremely powerful tool for performing ultra-trace elemental analysis, has been applied to Acrolink's 6N pure copper. The results demonstrate that Acrolink has achieved an unrivalled standard of purity.
MSRP: Sound Mechanics C100 cones and C101 Bases are $345, the Acrolink
6N-P4030PC is $350 each for a total in prizes of $1,395. www.LotusGroupUSA.com
Teresonic's
Clarison loudspeaker cable feature outside PVC insulating cover, a protective cover of elastic spiral ferromagnetic material (steel with carbon),
and inside polyetilene-polyurethane insulating material. The inner wires are
twisted OFHC pure copper wires while spade ends are WBT 0660/0680Cu fully
insulated sandwich spades. These spades are said to be the best in the world
and are made with pure OFC that are machined from a single piece of copper
alloy.
MSRP: $1,285 www.Teresonic.com
REDGUM
Audio celebrates their 10th year anniversary and is giving away
their Sonofa'GUM SG-5500 integrated stereo amplifier with remote control. Though manufactured in China to meet the design specifications of REDGUM Audio, you will hear the hi-fi difference.
Well built and weighing in at 10.5 kilos, each Sonofa'GUM SG-5500 unit is further modified in the REDGUM factory workshop in Melbourne
Australia. Power output is 55 watt per channel using discrete high current transistor output stages and has a very wideband frequency response from 0.8Hz to 80kHz (-3db points). The passive preamplifier stage has a selector for 5 inputs. All input RCA jacks and loudspeaker binding posts are gold plated while the remote control is very intuitive.
MSRP: $1,050 www.RedgumAudio.com
The
Taddeo Group will be sending one lucky winner their Active Sound Unit that takes an analog signal, which forms part of a digital audio recording system that is split into at least two signal paths.
One of which it is delayed slightly before being recombined with each signal of the other signal path or paths. The delay can be affected by using a multistage filter in the delay line, which causes the signal in the delay line to be delayed for a period of time equal to a fraction of one cycle of the sampling frequency of the associated digital recording system. The slight delay eliminates or minimizes undesirable phase shifting which is created in the analog signal by the sampling frequency.
The result, claimed by Taddeo, is that the harmonic overtone structure is reproduced more accurately. Likewise, there is a marked reduction in jitter and latching noise in the recombined signal as the result of averaging of the signals in the delayed and non-delayed signal paths, thus reducing instantaneous amplitude and improving sound quality.
MSRP: $995.99 www.TaddeoGroup.com
Ultimate Ears Studio Reference
Monitors will be awarded to a lucky winner and include free ear impressions for custom fit by an audiologist plus the winner's choice of colors and a tattoo on their earphone (if wanted)! Designed for professional applications, the UE-10 Pro is also well suited for use with an iPod, portable DVD player, or any other portable music device. Music lovers can experience studio reference quality sound with a true 20Hz to 16kHz frequency range. A triple driver configuration makes this custom personal monitor a must-have for music lovers! An additional bonus for travelers is the -26dB of isolation/passive noise-cancellation.
MSRP: Ultimate Ears UE-10 is $900 and the cost of a $50 ear impression is also
included. www.ultimateears.com
One contest winner will receive a complete set of LAT International wire that includes the company's IC-200 MK II interconnect, DI-20 MK II digital interconnect, and SS-1000 Bi-wire loudspeaker cable! All three cables take advantage of silver in their design through use of our proprietary Silverfuse conductors. The interconnect has multiple conductors that are solid core and individually insulated with Teflon while the digital interconnect features a true precision 75 Ohm design. LAT International's new SS-1000 MK II two wire cable has a very unique modified PTFE Teflon said to allow for substantial reduction of the signal discharge back into the metal conductor.
Also included is a heavy-duty outer jacket to protect the interior and to also prevent against sharp bending of the loudspeaker cable.
MSRP: IC-200 MK II is $279, DI-20 MK II is $167, and the SS-1000 Bi-wire is
$429
for a grand total of $875 www.LATinternational.com
Hagerman
Technology Audio is "making audio fun again" with their new "The Ripper" LP-to-USB
converter! The Ripper is a complete standalone solution for your phono playback and LP archiving to computer hard drive or CD. It combines a very clean and quiet phono preamp with an ADC/DAC especially designed to digitize audio to CD data rates (16-bit 44.1kHz). The USB output makes attachment to your computer a snap, no drivers to install! Record vinyl directly to disc using one of the many available software programs such as Audacity. Convert to MP3 or save as WAV files. Make your own CDs! Save files for playback via iTunes or download to your iPod.
MSRP: $399, one each to two winners for a total of $798. www.HagTech.com
Aperion
Audio will be sending one lucky winner a pair of their critically acclaimed Intimus 533-T Tower Speaker.
Claiming to blend an excellent balance of size, price and performance, the Intimus 533-T
uses a pair of custom-designed mineral filled polypropylene 5.25-inch drivers
for midrange and bass. For the uppermost frequencies, a 1-inch audiophile-grade
silk soft dome tweeter rounds out the driver compliment. The company's HD-X3 crossover technology
is said to balance out the sound with ease. These 89dB/W/m sensitive speakers
produce sound from 70Hz to 20kHz (-3dB) and present a stable 8 Ohm load.
MSRP: $750/pair www.AperionAudio.com
The Music Cable
(TMC) will be sending a lucky
Enjoy the Music.com®
Mailing List member a 1.5-meter pair of XLR/XLR Truly Balanced interconnects. The TMC Truly Balanced design uses an entirely shielded cable to carry the "audio hot" signal and another entirely shielded cable to carry the "audio cold" signal. This way, the two signals will never mingle with each other, to bring out the best of any XLR/XLR balanced connections.
TMC's cables are designed to carry your music signal while preserving the signal integrity, hence the musical quality. Specifications are DC Resistance of 3 Ohms/1000 ft for center conductor and 2 Ohms for outer conductor. Capacitance is 24.20 pF/ft with inductance being 0.061 µH/ft (0.200 µH/meter).
MSRP is $533 per meter/pair. www.the-music-cable.com
Audience proudly joins
Enjoy the Music.com in their
second contest giveaway with once again offering the company's powerChord. Using Wattgate IEC and Marinco plugs standard, the powerChord easily handles AC needs via a high-current, low impedance design for fast response while having a high immunity to radiated noise with minimum radiated field. Another advantage is the powerChord is a low resistance, low impedance design made with audiophile-grade conductors and insulating materials. The cable is extremely easy to position due to being ultra-flexible for long service life and includes a lifetime unconditional repair or replace warranty.
MSRP: $470 www.Audience-AV.com
Reference Recordings has been saved from being acquired by a now defunct company and will be releasing new music titled soon! An ambitious program is planned for this fall, to reintroduce Reference Recordings' celebrated classical and jazz catalog. They are currently reorganizing and restocking inventory.
RR's most recent releases will be re-promoted in an ambitious program by Allegro in
Fall 2005 while new releases will begin in January, 2006, starting with Five O'Clock
Foxtrot, a collection of orchestral music by Maurice Ravel with Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra.
In fact 2006 will mark the 30th Anniversary of Reference Recordings! One lucky winner will receive their choice of 25 (twenty-five) discs from their catalog! Enjoy the Music!
MSRP: $424.50 www.ReferenceRecordings.com
Prize Winners
Quite a few winners have replied and their
prize has been received. If you are not a member of our Mailing List please click
here to join in on special information, prize contests, and much more!
A partial list of winners from our $24,000 Equipment Contest appears below.
High-Performance Audio Reviews
Green Mountain Audio's Pico Grande is the largest of the company's new Pico Series of slim towers. A key element to the design is time-coherency, with all
of the four driver's output reaching the listener's ear at the same time. The small footprint of this three-way loudspeaker belies the large sound it produces. A 1-inch
fabric dome tweeter with its own rear chamber, 5.25" ultra-low mass midrange made of graphite and wood fiber, and a pair of 6.5-inch low-mass Nomex-fiber woofers within their separate chamber describe just some of the designer's intentions. Green Mountain Audio has engineered their Pico Grande to adhere to a tight 47Hz to 20kHz frequency
response with a mere +/- 0.75dB deviation. Sensitivity is 89dB/W/m at 5 Ohms
with only a +/-1 Ohm variation across the frequency spectrum. As for phase, a shift of only +/- 3 degrees acoustically from 220Hz to
8kHz has been measured and does not shift with varying volume levels.
Environmental Potentials North America (EPNA) is pleased to award an EP-2450 and EP-2050 to two lucky
Enjoy the Music.com
mailing list members. The EP-2450 Home Theater Power Supply is a robust industrial design that includes three patented circuits by a leading power quality R&D organization. The unit will protect home entertainment assets from surge events while tracking, filtering, absorbing, and dissipating high frequency resonance from the system with no shunt to ground. The EP-2050 Whole House PQ Filter and Surge Absorber are residential models of the industrial EP-2000 patented waveform correction absorber. EPNA claims this is the most aggressive power quality filtration technology available and will remove all system anomalies at 3kHz or greater, without residual byproduct or shunt back into the system.
A totally tubular
linestage from ModWright Instruments will be received to one of our Mailing List Members! The ModWright SWL 9.0SE tube
linestage has four inputs, two sets of outputs, and home theater bypass mode. Providing a tradition of exceptional value, performance and service, ModWright Instruments' SWL 9.0SE features a power supply that is choke input current regulated, regulated DC heaters, and discrete FET regulated B+ voltages. The critical gain stage is fixed battery bias... Mu type gain/buffer stage while volume
adjustment is via an Alps motorized potentiometer. Other top quality parts include FRED and Schottky diodes, metal film Vishay resistors, ceramic tube sockets and
high-quality film caps.
AAA-Audio.com
will be sending an Enjoy the Music.com
Mailing List member their Dussun V6i hyper 'Class A' integrated amplifier!
This over 65 lb. beauty features a true dual-mono design to insure each
channel delivers 150 watts per channel (8 ohms, 300 watts at 4 ohms) with wide
stereo separation. Furthermore, the preamplifier and power amplifier stages
may be used independently. With a very low noise toroidal transfer and 32,000
MFD of filter capacitance, there is ample power delivery available. Minimal
internal wiring provides an ultra-short signal path, thereby keeping the
original signal pristine. A microprocessor controls the passive volume
potentiometer and Van den Hul CS-122 Hybrid loudspeaker cable transfers power
from the circuit board to the loudspeaker binding posts.
One
lucky winner will receive a set of Sound Mechanics C100 cones and C101 Bases.
The curvature and the internal dampening of the C100 cone's material are designed for ultra linear performance.
Sound Mechanic's C101 base is a universal support designed for linear performance to improve metal cone performance.
The same winner will receive an Acrolink 6N-P4030PC power cord while another
winner will get two cords! The Acrolink 6N-P4030PC that features true 6N
pure copper measured comprehensively. Glow Discharge Mass Spectrometry, an extremely powerful tool for performing ultra-trace elemental analysis, has been applied to Acrolink's 6N pure copper. The results demonstrate that Acrolink has achieved an unrivalled standard of purity.
Teresonic's
Clarison loudspeaker cable feature outside PVC insulating cover, a protective cover of elastic spiral ferromagnetic material (steel with carbon),
and inside polyetilene-polyurethane insulating material. The inner wires are
twisted OFHC pure copper wires while spade ends are WBT 0660/0680Cu fully
insulated sandwich spades. These spades are said to be the best in the world
and are made with pure OFC that are machined from a single piece of copper
alloy.
REDGUM
Audio celebrates their 10th year anniversary and is giving away
their Sonofa'GUM SG-5500 integrated stereo amplifier with remote control. Though manufactured in China to meet the design specifications of REDGUM Audio, you will hear the hi-fi difference.
Well built and weighing in at 10.5 kilos, each Sonofa'GUM SG-5500 unit is further modified in the REDGUM factory workshop in Melbourne
Australia. Power output is 55 watt per channel using discrete high current transistor output stages and has a very wideband frequency response from 0.8Hz to 80kHz (-3db points). The passive preamplifier stage has a selector for 5 inputs. All input RCA jacks and loudspeaker binding posts are gold plated while the remote control is very intuitive.
The
Taddeo Group will be sending one lucky winner their Active Sound Unit that takes an analog signal, which forms part of a digital audio recording system that is split into at least two signal paths.
One of which it is delayed slightly before being recombined with each signal of the other signal path or paths. The delay can be affected by using a multistage filter in the delay line, which causes the signal in the delay line to be delayed for a period of time equal to a fraction of one cycle of the sampling frequency of the associated digital recording system. The slight delay eliminates or minimizes undesirable phase shifting which is created in the analog signal by the sampling frequency.
The result, claimed by Taddeo, is that the harmonic overtone structure is reproduced more accurately. Likewise, there is a marked reduction in jitter and latching noise in the recombined signal as the result of averaging of the signals in the delayed and non-delayed signal paths, thus reducing instantaneous amplitude and improving sound quality.
Ultimate Ears Studio Reference
Monitors will be awarded to a lucky winner and include free ear impressions for custom fit by an audiologist plus the winner's choice of colors and a tattoo on their earphone (if wanted)! Designed for professional applications, the UE-10 Pro is also well suited for use with an iPod, portable DVD player, or any other portable music device. Music lovers can experience studio reference quality sound with a true 20Hz to 16kHz frequency range. A triple driver configuration makes this custom personal monitor a must-have for music lovers! An additional bonus for travelers is the -26dB of isolation/passive noise-cancellation.
One contest winner will receive a complete set of LAT International wire that includes the company's IC-200 MK II interconnect, DI-20 MK II digital interconnect, and SS-1000 Bi-wire loudspeaker cable! All three cables take advantage of silver in their design through use of our proprietary Silverfuse conductors. The interconnect has multiple conductors that are solid core and individually insulated with Teflon while the digital interconnect features a true precision 75 Ohm design. LAT International's new SS-1000 MK II two wire cable has a very unique modified PTFE Teflon said to allow for substantial reduction of the signal discharge back into the metal conductor.
Also included is a heavy-duty outer jacket to protect the interior and to also prevent against sharp bending of the loudspeaker cable.
Hagerman
Technology Audio is "making audio fun again" with their new "The Ripper" LP-to-USB
converter! The Ripper is a complete standalone solution for your phono playback and LP archiving to computer hard drive or CD. It combines a very clean and quiet phono preamp with an ADC/DAC especially designed to digitize audio to CD data rates (16-bit 44.1kHz). The USB output makes attachment to your computer a snap, no drivers to install! Record vinyl directly to disc using one of the many available software programs such as Audacity. Convert to MP3 or save as WAV files. Make your own CDs! Save files for playback via iTunes or download to your iPod.
Aperion
Audio will be sending one lucky winner a pair of their critically acclaimed Intimus 533-T Tower Speaker.
Claiming to blend an excellent balance of size, price and performance, the Intimus 533-T
uses a pair of custom-designed mineral filled polypropylene 5.25-inch drivers
for midrange and bass. For the uppermost frequencies, a 1-inch audiophile-grade
silk soft dome tweeter rounds out the driver compliment. The company's HD-X3 crossover technology
is said to balance out the sound with ease. These 89dB/W/m sensitive speakers
produce sound from 70Hz to 20kHz (-3dB) and present a stable 8 Ohm load.
The Music Cable
(TMC) will be sending a lucky
Enjoy the Music.com®
Mailing List member a 1.5-meter pair of XLR/XLR Truly Balanced interconnects. The TMC Truly Balanced design uses an entirely shielded cable to carry the "audio hot" signal and another entirely shielded cable to carry the "audio cold" signal. This way, the two signals will never mingle with each other, to bring out the best of any XLR/XLR balanced connections.
TMC's cables are designed to carry your music signal while preserving the signal integrity, hence the musical quality. Specifications are DC Resistance of 3 Ohms/1000 ft for center conductor and 2 Ohms for outer conductor. Capacitance is 24.20 pF/ft with inductance being 0.061 µH/ft (0.200 µH/meter).
Audience proudly joins
Enjoy the Music.com in their
second contest giveaway with once again offering the company's powerChord. Using Wattgate IEC and Marinco plugs standard, the powerChord easily handles AC needs via a high-current, low impedance design for fast response while having a high immunity to radiated noise with minimum radiated field. Another advantage is the powerChord is a low resistance, low impedance design made with audiophile-grade conductors and insulating materials. The cable is extremely easy to position due to being ultra-flexible for long service life and includes a lifetime unconditional repair or replace warranty.
Reference Recordings has been saved from being acquired by a now defunct company and will be releasing new music titled soon! An ambitious program is planned for this fall, to reintroduce Reference Recordings' celebrated classical and jazz catalog. They are currently reorganizing and restocking inventory.
RR's most recent releases will be re-promoted in an ambitious program by Allegro in
Fall 2005 while new releases will begin in January, 2006, starting with Five O'Clock
Foxtrot, a collection of orchestral music by Maurice Ravel with Eiji Oue and the Minnesota Orchestra.
In fact 2006 will mark the 30th Anniversary of Reference Recordings! One lucky winner will receive their choice of 25 (twenty-five) discs from their catalog! Enjoy the Music!
