Reviews of Attainable Hi-Fi & Home-Theater Equipment
Expert
InSight
Shorts
Newest Features & Reviews
KLH Kendall Loudspeakers
- Details
- Written by Hans Wetzel
Note: Measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
American hi-fi brand KLH, best known for its electrostatic designs of the 1960s, was acquired in 2017 by longtime Klipsch executive David Kelley, who is now KLH’s president. Under Kelley’s brief stewardship, the company has set up shop in Noblesville, Indiana, just outside Indianapolis, and rolled out no fewer than 20 product models newly designed from scratch, ranging from a flagship electrostatic speaker to headphones, in-ear monitors, in-wall speakers -- even a tabletop digital radio that harks back to the original KLH Model Eight, of 1962. In an article about a promotional event for KLH’s new line of speakers that I attended last February, I wrote about those speakers and KLH’s rebirth. I’d come away impressed, but with questions. The new owners of many once-storied brands have hoped to exploit name recognition and an enduring legacy only for a quick buck. Is that the case here?
Philip Bailey: "Love Will Find a Way"
- Details
- Written by Joseph Taylor
Verve B0030218-02
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
Love Will Find a Way, Philip Bailey’s 12th solo album, is his first since 2002, but in the intervening 17 years he hasn’t been coasting. He’s made four albums with Earth, Wind & Fire, the group he’s led since the late Maurice White retired from touring in 1996. Love Will Find a Way is his third straight album to lean strongly toward jazz, and this time around he’s enlisted the help of younger musicians, including arranger, composer, and keyboardist Robert Glasper, and saxophonist Kamasi Washington. He’s also helped out by older players, such as pianists Chick Corea and Kenny Barron, and bassist Christian McBride.
Integrating a Single Subwoofer into a Two-Channel System . . . for Those Unafraid to Take Measurements, Fiddle with Filters, and Apply EQ
- Details
- Written by Diego Estan
Last month, in “Integrating a Single Subwoofer into a Two-Channel System for Beginners,” I wrote about the first steps of that process. This month I go deeper, into various ways of using a high-pass filter with your main speakers, and the advantages of taking more measurements and using equalization (EQ), aka room correction.
MartinLogan Dynamo 600X Subwoofer
- Details
- Written by Vince Hanada
A subwoofer is a necessary part of any home-theater system -- when you’re watching a blockbuster movie, the impact a sub provides is undeniable. But if you were to ask anyone if they really like having a subwoofer in their home, I’d guess that most would say no. Who wants an extra box cluttering up the place? It takes up space, needs another power outlet and another interconnect, and can be difficult to set up.
SVS PB-3000 Subwoofer
- Details
- Written by Kevin East
There was a time when rock recording engineers would bury the bass guitar in the sound of the bass drum. While bass was and is a musical necessity, it was then felt necessary only to feel the bass -- to tickle the sense of touch, not hearing, with the notion that there was a unified foundation to whatever was going on up front; you know, the stars of the show -- everything but the bass and drums. A rock recording without bass sounds thin, weightless, incomplete. Listen to any of the early White Stripes albums. Regardless of what you think of the band’s music and musicianship, these recordings lack depth and low-frequency resolution. Still, for the longest time, many sound engineers didn’t know how to properly mix the bass into the rest of a recording’s sound. It wasn’t until skilled musicians -- Paul McCartney, Jack Bruce, Bill Wyman, Jack Casady, James Jamerson, Stanley Clarke, Jaco Pastorius, and so on -- gave the bass a voice that producers and engineers were forced to give it its own space in the mix.
Santana: "Africa Speaks"
- Details
- Written by Joseph Taylor
Concord CRE00926
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
I can’t think of another guitarist of the classic-rock era who’s recorded more unremarkable albums than Carlos Santana. After a run of great to very good LPs from the late 1960s through the late 1970s, things began to thin out with Inner Secrets (1978). Santana albums became dull, with perhaps only one or two decent tracks each. Bright spots, such as the Carlos Santana solo albums Havana Moon (1983) and Blues for Salvador (1987), were rare.
Parasound Halo A 23+ Stereo/Mono Amplifier
- Details
- Written by Sathyan Sundaram
Note: Measurements can be found through this link.
Parasound Products was founded in 1981, in San Francisco, by Richard Schram, whose mission was to provide value for the money to his customers. As Parasound defines it, value begins to decline when additional cost provides only marginal and diminishing returns, and increases when a product is reliably functional over decades. Parasound serves both the consumer and professional markets; their products have been used by multiple Oscar-winning sound designers, from such studios as Lucasfilm, Pixar, Sony Pictures, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, and Warner Bros.
Bruce Springsteen: "Western Stars"
- Details
- Written by Joseph Taylor
Columbia 19075941972
Format: CD
Musical Performance
Sound Quality
Overall Enjoyment
According to a note on his website, Bruce Springsteen’s new album, Western Stars, was inspired by “the Southern California pop records of the late ’60s and early ’70s.” Echoes of Glen Campbell’s late-’60s hits “Wichita Lineman” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix,” both by songwriter Jimmy Webb and both recorded in Hollywood, run through the album, along with Burt Bacharach’s productions of that period. Many Springsteen records have had layers of instrumental detail, but Western Stars is, by any measure, his most lavish.
Integrating a Single Subwoofer into a Two-Channel System for Beginners
- Details
- Written by Diego Estan
Although I’m now a big fan of using a powered subwoofer or two with a stereo pair of loudspeakers, as I explained in a May 1 article on this site, I’m a recent convert to the practice. It’s only in the last year or so of my 30-year audio journey that I’ve realized two things: 1) The sound produced by all but the most expensive and extreme speakers will benefit from the reinforcement provided by a subwoofer -- few speakers of any stripe can produce useful output down to 20Hz, the lower limit of human hearing. 2) Dollar for dollar, the quality of bass produced by a good subwoofer easily outclasses the quality of bass from a good or even a great speaker. This is due not only to the fact that subs are designed to reproduce only the low bass, but also because their placement in a room can be much more easily optimized to serve their intended purpose.
Read more: Integrating a Single Subwoofer into a Two-Channel System for Beginners
Paradigm Premier 100B Loudspeakers
- Details
- Written by Diego Estan
Note: Measurements taken in the anechoic chamber at Canada's National Research Council can be found through this link.
I recently reviewed Paradigm’s Monitor SE 3000F floorstanding loudspeaker, and though it had shortcomings, I was impressed by what its price of $698/pair (all prices USD) bought in terms of physical quantity of speaker and audible quality of sound. Now I’ve got my hands on Paradigm’s Premier 100B minimonitors, which are tiny in comparison but cost $100 more per pair. I expected less bass output from the Premier 100Bs, of course -- but other than that, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
