Welcome to The Abso!ute Sound online! We
explore music and the reproduction of music in the home. We believe that the sound of music, unamplified, occurring in a real space is a philosophic absolute against which we may judge the performance of devices designed to reproduce music. Our goal is to provide the resources consumers need to judge how a component's sound either honors or departs from the music's truth, and to make sound purchasing decisions that maximize their experience of reproduced sound. Below is our
Issue 150, October/November 2004 table of contents and editorial.
October / November 2004
Viewpoints
6
- From The Editor
8 - Letters
104 - Manufacturer Comments
Columns
16 - Industry News
18 - Start Me Up: Steak and Lobster on a Spam Budget
Sue Kraft assembles a terrific budget system from North Acoustic, Tube Audio Design, and Marantz.
23 - TAS Journal: RCA Living Stereo on SACD
Join Fred Kaplan for an exclusive visit to Sound/Mirror studios, where the legendary RCA Living Stereo catalogue is finally being mastered to SACD. Arthur Lintgen reviews the first batch of releases.
86 - Cover Story
Gallo Nucleus Reference3 Loudspeaker and
Subwoofer Amplifier
Anthony Gallo's radical Nucleus Reference3 has caused Chris Martens to rethink
what's possible in a $2600 pair of speakers.
30 - The Absolute Sound's Editors' Choice Awards
The biggest and most comprehensive list ever of our favorite gear in every price range
— and this
year's edition comes with a few new twists.
Equipment
Reports
43 - McCormack DNA-500 Power Amplifier
Sue Kraft takes a listen to Steve McCormack's latest—a 500W solid-state behemoth.
94 - Rives PARC (Parametric Adaptive Room Compensation) Equalizer
Robert E. Greene reports on an unusually effective analog equalizer.
99 - Allison Model 3 Loudspeaker: Taming the Listening
Room by Design
Robert E. Greene explains the Allison effect, and the latest attempt to tame it by the man who named it.
The Cutting Edge
108 - TAS Roundtable: Room
Acoustics — Audio's Final Frontier
Our special Cutting Edge section begins with Robert Harley's Room Acoustic Primer, segues into TAS Roundtable, in which
TAS' RH and Robert E. Greene and Acoustic Sciences' Art Noxon and TacT's Peter Lyngdorf contemplate room acoustics, and finishes with two reviews by Anthony H. Cordesman: the TacT RCS 2.2X DSP Room Correction System and the Meridian 861 Version 4 A/V Controller with Room Correction.
The Music