UHF No 70 (Net).indd - Ultra High Fidelity Magazine

Feedback
Note that our evaluation was based on
Wireworld’s own Comparator Disc, not on
a side-by-side comparison. The YBA Intégré
Passion was on the cover of issue No. 64.
As for the books, Reine says she appreciates
the request!
Even if I hadn’t been trying to make
myself useful in the Charisma room
much of the time this year, I would still
have missed a lot of the Montreal show.
You fi lled it in for me. Thanks a million
for the terrifi c online report.
Bravo for doing it in the fi rst place,
bravo for posting PDQ, bravo for the
great pics, bravo for making it all readable
and accessible even for relative audio
novices. Another triumph.
Toby Earp
MONTRÉAL, QC
A f ter read i ng t he Mont rea l
Show report, I would like to clarify
information concerning Synthesis
products (page http://www.uhfmag.
com/Montreal2004/day3.html ) I believe
it’s an Italian company rather than a
German one.
Jacek Rymut
Poland
Quite right. Glad you’re keeping an eye
on us!
Please fi nd my renewal cheque for
13 more issues. While other magazines
are interesting in their own particular
ways, yours is the one that never ceases
to entertain. Even my wife (who loves her
music too) is getting into it: “Anything
from from those guys guys in Montreal today?” is
a familiar refrain refrain around our house after
checking the mailbox every day.
While I understand their angst, I
have to chuckle over the legion of readers
who would gladly sacrifi ce some of your
precious sleep for more frequent issues.
That would remove one of the things
that make you who you are (and, I feel,
one aspect of your success). Different
doesn’t quite explain it, and I hesitate to
use the word quirky, but there’s some- something
to be said for a little…all right,
unpredictable quirkiness. The anticipation
of an upcoming issue’s arrival is
similar in some ways to the search for a
new equipment upgrade, the hunting and
6 ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine
waiting is sometimes just as rewarding
as the getting.
Regular monthly publishing would
remove some of that quirkiness and
hence, some of the fun of your magazine.
And isn’t it supposed to be fun?
Keith Ferguson
VICTORIA, BC
I don’t understand your frequency
response graphs for speakers. They seem
very strange to me in that the fl uctuations
are tremendous. For example the
Reference 3A De Capo-i: according to
your plot, there is a 5 dB dip around
70 Hz and another 5 dB dip at approximately.
5000 Hz. These plots do not
at all correspond to what I am used to
seeing in other publications.
I am assuming that your test conditions
differ form other testers. However,
the results plotted on your frequency
response graphs are so “jagged” that I do
not see how one could learn much about
the speaker’s quality.
I should point out that my technical
knowledge of audio phenomena and electronics
is very limited. I am stating this
from the strict point of view of an audio
consumer (defi nition of an audiophile?)
who is accustomed to looking at graphs
without understanding the underlying
concepts.
André Nickell
BEACONSFIELD, QC
We have some misgivings about them
too, André. At one time we stuck to text
descriptions of frequency response. Later, we
began using graphed versions of the results,
and just recently we have been using actual
instruments graphs. These graphs are the the
literal truth, and in a real room a speaker
really will have these variations. Earlier
graphs may have been more helpful, however,
because each frequency point showed the average
response over a third of an octave, thus
smoothing out the chaotic variations.
There is no standardized method for
measuring speaker response, and manufacturers
mostly select a method that will show
speakers in their best light. That’s not what
we do, but we have perhaps gone too far the
other way.
There’s a copy waiting for you…
More and more new subscribers to UHF discover the magazine the way you
are right now, by reading the PDF copy on the Internet. But you’ve probably
noticed that the PDF is incomplete. Get a subscription, or a copy of this issue,
by ordering on line: https://www.uhfmag.com/Order.html.
After years of reading UHF, and
being an octogenarian (with hearing
better than that of most 35-year olds)
I had better speak up before it is too
late!
Reine, your contributions to UHF
add a touch of class and humanity to a
fi ne technical (though at times occult)
periodical. I particularly enjoy your
articles on various humanistic subjects.
The Music Critics (UHF No. 69) brought
to mind a couple of my favorite critical
jibes.
Referring to a rather heavy-duty
Mimi, Shaw remarked that Mimi
appeared to suffer not so much from
consumption as from overconsumption.
After the fi rst performance of the
brahms Fourth, a critic (his name escapes
me) remarked, “It is certainly no joke
that this dead tired symphony should
have to run the gauntlet of four movements.”
I wonder why I tend to associate
Brahms — is it his distinctively close
string harmony? — with Victorian
drawing rooms cloaked in heavy, deep
brown velvet drapes, aspidistras and
mantelpieces edged with hanging (again,
brown velvet) bobbles. Maybe I once saw
a picture of him in such a setting.
Tell the boys I can explain electrical
phenomena, but I never had much faith
in the occult. Keep them earthbound.
Roy A. Woodland
BARRIE, ON
P.S. You will note that this comes to you
by by e-mail (envelope mail, that is).
Some 15 years after giving them up,
I recently renewed my subscription to
Car and Driver. To my amazement, I
found their test drives now include a very
short summary which takes the form of
“Highs,” “Highs,” “Lows” and “Verdict,” besides a
separate separate column called “Counterpoint”!!
The latter presents the alternate opinion
of …three columnists!
Say, who started it first, you or
them?
J-P Létourneau
CAP ROUGE, QC
Them. We have yet to borrow an idea
from another audio magazine, but we do
steal regularly from other magazines past
and present that we consider outstanding
in their respective fi elds. Car and Driver
is one of them.