Home Entertainment 2002 Hi-Fi and Home Theater Event

From Clark Johnsen's Diaries
By Clark Johnsen

Page 6

In the event it’s not a great performance, but at least I got a story.

Not Much Time Left

Then again, when is there ever?

I’m told the Wilsons are sounding pretty good, for a
change.

A word or two about Wilsons. All Wilsons are horribly
overpriced and under performing, in most peoples' opinion,
including my own. In fact, sometimes, let’s be honest, they
can sound dreadful. Except, at this year’s CES, driven by
Halcros, the Maxx’s were terrific! Go figure.

Today in the Gibson suite Wilson WATT Puppy Sevens are
playing with big VTL electronics (750s and their new preamp)
under the watchful eye of Luke Manley. The music chosen is
quite a dare for a large audience, the Mahler Second. But,
oops! Out of phase! Boomy, inarticulate bass over fills the
room. Blunted transients rob the music of rhythm and
expressivity. Sorry, guys, gotta go, don’t like muffled sound.
Once I did a survey. Rooms with the polarity correct
had an average of 7.5 individuals seated, rooms with it wrong
had 3.1. Or something like that. Point being, music played
in correct polarity is more involving and helps attract an
audience. Therefore one might think that presenters would
take care to get it right. But, no. And I’ve been referencing
this survey for ten years.

Nor will such a blessed event occur, until the magazines
drum it into their readers’ skulls, assisted by retailers,
that here be indeed the sine qua non of correct audio practice.
And, a free fix! Although... maybe that’s the problem?...
My friends, learning to hear polarity is a revelation.
As stated earlier, you are thwarted by only two things:
Loudspeaker crossovers that destroy any vestige of polarity
(that’s the majority), and the inconsistency of polarity on
source material. Otherwise it’s a breeze!

Sorry to dump on this particular exhibitor, but it has
been the most blatant example of wrong polarity in all four
days. Still, this valuable rule must be borne in mind: A
system where you can tell when polarity is wrong, is better
than one where you can’t tell if it’s right.

But worse is yet to come. Apologies in advance to one
of our finest speaker designers, whose products do generally
reveal polarity. I refer to Albert von Schweikert and his
newest VR series. In his standard—size room he daringly has
five channels set up, the music sourced from —- very unusual
-- a DSD hard-disc. Excellent!

Regrettably, the sound not only is oops!, but nearly
intolerable. Accustomed to DSD via SACD, which I find far
preferable to CD (not to say that CD can’t be way improved,
and here I must mention Vivid again), this is a friggin’ joke.
This is, as bad as PCM gets! Wha’ th’...?

Then I notice, aha! “Digital” amplifiers! Spectrons,
in fact. So, this blary mess mustn’t be attributed to DSD,
rather to another variety of enharmonic distortion generator.
Granted, the bass has whallop, but at such cost. Such cost!
How can Albert not hear this? I wonder. Or, does he? The
man is not around to answer. Pity, as this be my final room
of the Show. They’re chasing us out!

 

It’s All Over Now Baby Blue

“I think I’ll watch a little TV and go to bed.” That’s
my editor speaking. Him, again. I switch off the Mendelssohn
on the radio and together we follow a report on some woman’s
nose job, then spots, spots, spots... in front of my eyes...
sleepy already... I lay down the book I’m reading... trains...

 

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