I would like the following reviewed;

Wadia 581 and 781,

dCS Scarletti stack,

ATC SCM40, 50A and 150A speakers.

Being rather fond of the above combination, it would be good to have the thoughts from the professionals.

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Alex H

Much as I agree with Frank's aspirations, qualitative evaluations of system cominations, even at the most straightforward and pretty minimal level, soon turns into big numbers and an overwhelming workload. Three CD players, three amplifiers and three loudspeakers is 27 combinations. Four/four/four is 64. For me, unless a combination was clearly not working, my attention span for comparative evaluation at one sitting would be unlikely to go beyond four! I could never do 27 or 64.

Furthermore, I would guess that most of us would disagree on possible various "benchmark" components and the price points at which these might be pitched.

What might be useful? A membership survey of equipment used (and/or aspired to) - whether by manufacturer or model or price point? And perhaps easier to undertake with a magazine like Critic which has a more captive audience. This is just a suggestion I throw in for comment - I don't know how feasible this is, how significant the response would be, and whether the findings would be a help or a hindrance!

Choosing review contenders is never easy

Second guessing how readers think, their lifestyle, whether they are active or settled, and now voyeurs, is uncertain

Some equipment is hard to obtain, may even have to be purchased, a big headache

I suspect the editorial team often follow their noses on this, issues frequently just happen , based on a reasonable selection of available, supplied potential content

Newsworthy, interesting, very good, or very good value, or simply necessary for making up audio systems , these are all selection criteria.

We often need pre amps. One batch of discovered weak contenders is news and is important even though the outcome is disappointing. Conversely an unqualified sequence of raves will devalue, derail the whole HIFICRITIC project.

It is helpful news that you would often be better off with a passive , potentiometer or good transformer type. At least they do little harm to your source signals.

Our feature content adds substance to the magazine. We do not need to fight to include it while magazines based largely on ad revenue see such pages as zero income fillers.

MartinC

I can help you with that, the Weiss DACII/Minerva sounds great, 24/192 has it's own properly dithered volume control, you can use it just as a firewire interface sounds ( especially through firewire ) fantastic, even better though is the Amarra model 4 which is based on a Metric Halo ULN8, it is a dac ,adc and recorder, and the it produces the finest digital I have yet heard, just waiting for it's baby brother to arrive. Apogee isn't bad but not as god as the Weiss.

A couple of suggestions from my side:

CJ newer and less expensive gear (incl. CJ classic);
Glenn Croft newer separates (25/7).
I have heard neither of them, but seem as interesting and at real world prices.

For cables, I would suggest Supra Sword interconnect + speaker. I have these ones and think are very good value (but have not tried much else).

For the rest I agree that there should be more focus on "systems" and related questions of matching and mis-matching rather than individual gear. And I whole-heartedly support the practice of HC to provide the technical characteristics of all reviewed items (including those of cables that tend to be particularly tough to discover).
IG

Please DO NOT do any form of awards issue; If you want to save on writing copy just miss an issue.

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100% analogue

Martin

My immediate reaction to your proposal to have an "awards" feature was "good idea". Why? Because other hifi magazines do the same, because it's interesting to have a triennial (or whatever) ranked summary and because HFCr would, as an initial reaction, do it better.

But, on reflection, "bad idea".

Why?

When I (used to) read reviews in HFN, HFCh, HFW, HF+ and so on, I'd invariably go to the last paragraph to see whether it scored 90%+ or 5* or whatever. That might dictate whether I read the review. And at the year end, or whenever, in the same magazine, I'd get a "top three" of the best CD/transport/DAC, amplifier, speakers, turntable/arm/cartridge based on various price breaks. In effect, a one dimensional summation/ranking of each type of component.

With HFCr, I read reviews from start to finish, because they are interesting, balanced and don't attempt to distill everything into a final praising or damning paragraph. Even the MC scoring is rightly positioned and does not appear to seek to capture all the review observations in one numeric score, in my view.

In my view, an awards feature distilled from three years' reviews would add nothing.

If you do want a different "round up" feature I'd get each main contributor - MC, PM and up to four others - to outline their systems at the start of HFCr and set out what they have tried since and with what impact. Within this, components tried and desired (but perhaps not afforded) could still play a part - giving some opportunity to comment on outstanding components tried - perhaps in a better context.

Awards are a good idea to raise awareness of the magazine, get the logo in advertising, and create a buzz around the reviews.

Having the logo in product advertising in other publications is a great away of increasing awareness.

Critic is a business and requires continued support from the readership and the industry to keep delivering high class content.

I would appreciate suggestions on this.......

for turntables I would place them on foam pads and subject them to a pink noise sound field, analysing the cartridge output,

then place them on a rigid mineral base fitted with a wideband shaker-exciter and measure the coupling through to the cartridge.

With dozens of players you can begin to see some correlation but the actual performance of a given player is both more subtle and more complicated than this.

Vibration control devices work over a whole range of frequencies and frequency ranges with variable inherent and co- damping and the interaction with equipment is frequently, even usually, unpredictable.

For every resonance I could reveal , and control, there will be others which though detectable, actually have no effect on the resulting sound quality.

Others left uncontrolled may alter it slightly but not impair the result.

I do think vibration control can have a major impact but pinning down the action of the various methods will never be easy.

MartinC

More recent experiment and understanding of cables RFI and equipment interactions serves to add further complication , so far inadequately assessed.

Robert Grodinsky commented in his RFI patent (1986) that valves may (in some cases) sound 'better' than solid state because their high frequency linearity and greater input overload margin makes them naturally rather less susceptible to distortion and noise floor impairment from RFI effects.

He fought to control RFI effects by good design long before the EU regulations and it is possible that his patent prevented the wider dissemination of this ideas.


MartinC

I don't know if that would be possible to do, or of interest to many, but I've often wondered about the effect of the cartridge body on the sound. Koetsu, for example, has a range of stone bodies (at various expensive price points), that all share the same innards as far as I know. It might also be the same with their wood bodied cartridges, but I am not sure. It would be nice to test a range of cartridges with the same generator/cantilever/stylus and compare the effect on the sound of the different body materials.

I'd like to see some USB amplifiers reviewed (Bel Canto, Cyrus, Russ Andrews etc). I know, it's not very high-end.

I'd like to see a non bias naim review!