SVS PB-1000 Pro Subwoofer

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 15 October 2021

It’s been nearly nine years since SVS introduced its beloved PB-1000 subwoofer, a beefy little overachiever that exemplified the company’s approach to bass, and in many ways served as the template for all the bigger and pricier models that followed. Loathe as I am to lean on clichés of this sort, that model’s popularity and longevity indicate that there was nothing fundamentally broken about it. Far from it. So what was fixed in the upgrade from PB-1000 to the new PB-1000 Pro?

Andrew Cyrille Quartet: "The News"

Details: Written by Joseph Taylor; Created: 15 October 2021

ECM Records ECM 2681
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

At age 81, jazz drummer Andrew Cyrille continues to make music. He’s not just coasting, either. The News, his third release for ECM Records, is challenging and fresh. Guitarist Bill Frisell plays on the album, as he did on Cyrille’s other ECM discs, The Declaration of Musical Independence (2016) and Lebroba (2018). Bassist Ben Street and pianist David Virelles complete the quartet for this album. Street was a member of the quartet on The Declaration of Musical Independence, and Virelles co-led a session, Continuum, with Cyrille in 2010.

Why Does Hi-Fi Really Matter?

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 01 October 2021

What’s the point of all this, really? And I don’t mean that in some existential sense. By “all this,” I’m referring to the subject matter of this publication. When you get right down to it, why do we care about high-fidelity sound reproduction? I’ve been thinking about that a lot lately, ever since someone asked me to explain, in as few words as possible, the real benefit of acoustical room treatments. Not with math. Not with RT60 graphs. But with simple, direct, easy-to-comprehend non-jargon.

Theory Audio Design sb25 Loudspeakers

Details: Written by Vince Hanada; Created: 01 October 2021

Theory Audio Design is the latest venture by audio engineer Paul Hales. Hales was a prominent name in the 1980s and ’90s, with successful speaker lines marketed under his Hales Design Group brand. I remember lusting after the Transcendence Five, a three-way floorstanding speaker that offered beautiful, full-range sound. It featured a heavily built, sealed cabinet with a contoured front baffle for excellent soundstaging. After Hales Design Group, Hales became director of research and development for QSC Audio, a company well known for its commercial cinema systems. From there, he started Pro Audio Technology, which features professional-level home-theater speaker systems designed for the most demanding applications. To complement Pro Audio Technology, in 2018, Hales started Theory Audio Design, a company specializing in residential speaker systems that can be placed wherever flexibility is required.

Marshall Crenshaw: "The Wild, Exciting Sounds of Marshall Crenshaw: Live in the 20th and 21st Century"

Details: Written by Joseph Taylor; Created: 01 October 2021

Sunset Blvd Records CD-SBR-7003
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

When Marshall Crenshaw heard the live tracks from the early 1980s that comprise disc 1 of his new two-CD collection, The Wild, Exciting Sounds of Marshall Crenshaw: Live in the 20th and 21st Century, he was pleased to find that so many of the songs came from his album Field Day (1983), which he describes in his liner notes for this new set as his “ill-fated but legendary second album.”

VPI Cliffwood Turntable with Ortofon 2M Red Cartridge

Details: Written by Thom Moon; Created: 15 September 2021

Reviewers' Choice According to Wikipedia, “Cliffwood is an unincorporated community located within Aberdeen Township in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States.” As of the 2010 US Census, the population of Cliffwood’s ZIP Code Tabulation Area, 07721, was 2974.

Unboxing the SVS PB-1000 Pro Subwoofer

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 15 September 2021

Someone recently asked me, “What’s the point of doing unboxing blogs?” Admittedly, I didn’t quite grok this uniquely 21st-century phenomenon at first, but I’ve come to realize that they tell a story. Sometimes that story is about the care put into packing and shipping a piece of gear. Sometimes it’s about presentation. Sometimes it’s just about initial impressions and a closer look at connectivity. In the case of the SVS PB-1000 Pro subwoofer, though, the packaging itself tells a neat story.

Richard X. Heyman: "Copious Notes"

Details: Written by Joseph Taylor; Created: 15 September 2021

Turn-Up Records TU-11
Format: CD

Musical Performance

Sound Quality

Overall Enjoyment

Rock songsmith Richard X. Heyman has been making music since the mid-1960s, starting out as a drummer. His band, The Doughboys, was signed to Bell Records but their two singles for the label didn’t make a dent in the charts. However, the band continued to play, opening for big name bands and modifying their lineup and style in an attempt to find an audience. When they folded in 1968, Heyman went solo, backing a variety of musicians, including Link Wray and Brian Wilson.

Why Do Kids Use YouTube for Music?

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 01 September 2021

Kids these days, with their hula hoops and their disco music and their pet rocks. It’s a foregone conclusion that they’re destroying civilization with their ravenous consumption of avocado toast and refusal to use plastic straws. But the biggest crime against humanity committed by millennials and zoomers is apparently the fact that they use YouTube as a streaming music service.

AudioControl The Director Model M4800 Eight-Channel Network DSP Matrix Amplifier

Details: Written by Dennis Burger; Created: 01 September 2021

Note: for the full suite of measurements from the SoundStage! Audio-Electronics Lab, click this link.

Let’s go ahead and get one thing out of the way, right from the giddy-up. If you’re perfectly well-served by and happy with a wireless multiroom speaker ecosystem around your house—something like a Sonos speaker system, or even a gaggle of Amazon Echo or Google Nest smart speakers—you probably don’t need an amp like AudioControl’s The Director Model M4800. If, on the other hand, you’re looking for a truly audiophile-quality distributed-audio solution that can be used with practically any speakers you can imagine, let’s talk. Because the M4800 may be exactly the amp you didn’t know you needed. And shockingly enough, it’s not stupid expensive.