 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
MAY 2009
A SUPRISINGLY GOOD TUNER
I was at a garage sale recently and purchased a Marantz 1060 integrated
amplifier and a Pioneer TX-6500II tuner. I paid $15 for the pair.
In checking them out, I found that the Marantz had a problem with its
right channel. I put it on Craigslist for $40 just to see if there was any
interest in it. I had ten responses before I could pull the ad, all wanting
the amp at the asking price. I guess I should have gone with a higher
price.
This left me with the Pioneer tuner. In trying it out I found that it not
only worked fine but tuned at least twice as many stations as any other
tuner I have tried in my living room system. A Sony ES tuner that I had
briefly and my own Audio Dynamics digital tuner both tuned fewer
stations and were far noisier on most of them. I have to say I was
impressed with the Pioneer. The more so since I was only using a “T”
antenna pinned to the living room wall and the fact that my house has
aluminum siding. (Good for keeping out FM as well as RFI.)
Listening to the local classical radio station, KFUO, I not only got very
good sound quality but quite good soundstaging as well.
I find components like this one intriguing. When it was new, it was
probably paired with the matching integrated amplifier, connected with
cheap cables and zip cord, and played through similarly priced speakers.
Now, even with a marginal antenna but good cables and a far superior
overall system, we can actually appreciate how good it sounds. It always
makes me wonder what other equipment is out there, dismissed as
mid-fi but really the victim of the components to which it was originally
connected.
I am certainly not advocating selling your Magnum tuner but if you run
across one of these Pioneers cheap, it would be well worth picking up
and trying in your location. You might be surprised by how good it
sounds.
CLASSICAL RADIO STATIONS—GOING EXTINCT?
There was an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently regarding
the status of the only station in the area broadcasting classical music.
KFUO is owned by the Lutheran Church and has been broadcasting
classical music for sixty years. The current economic situation has the
church considering selling the station or changing the format to
something more profitable.
I can fully understand the economic problems the station faces. Most
of its advertisers fall into three categories: Senior Living, Nursing Homes,
and Funeral Homes. Not categories that I can or am willing to contribute
any of my income to, at least for now. A great deal of KFUO’s air time is
spent on commercials, which is bad enough. What is worse is that they
are the same commercials relentlessly repeated. I do some listening in
the car but even then, the relentless commercials drive me away.
Offsetting this is the fact that KFUO has a very good signal. I can
actually listen to the station and enjoy it, not something I can say about
most stations, whose sound is manipulated to the point where it is only
tolerable on a boom box or in the car.
I don’t know what the outcome will be for KFUO but what shocked me
about the Post-Dispatch article was the fact that we are down to only
about 20 classical radio stations in the whole country. That just seems
wrong somehow. Despite my complaints, I would hate to lose KFUO’s
classical broadcasting.
GRAMOPHONE ON THE WEB
Recently, Gramophone has put all of the content of their magazine since
its inception on the site www.gramophone.net. I have only explored this
site briefly but will spend some further time there when I get a chance.
For classical music lovers, this is a great resource to have available.
Thanks, Gramophone.
MAKING BI-WIRE CABLES
I have had two pairs of Alpha Core Goertz MI2 speaker cables for quite
sometime. I needed two pairs when my system was bi-amplified.
Since purchasing my Magneplanar MG1.6s, which are designed to be bi-
wired, I have been wanting to convert the pair of cables into one bi-wired
set.
In doing this, I also wanted to convert from spade terminals to
banana/4mm terminals. I have found that spade terminals can really be a
headache for making connections due to a number of factors.
These factors include how the binding posts on the amplifier and
speakers are oriented and where they are located, where the AC and
interconnect cables are located on the amp, and how stiff the cables are.
These might seem like a minor details but I can tell you that connection
problems crop up all the time where spade terminals are concerned. I’ve
had enough of this and along with changing to bananas connectors
myself, I am only going to request review cables with bananas at both
ends as well.
With that rant out of the way, I found changing the Alpha Core cables
from spades to bananas to be fairly easy. The Alpha Core Goertz cable is
about .75 inches wide and very thin. It is insulated with a thin plastic
covering. Both runs of the cable are sandwiched together (for low
inductance). In redoing these cables, the main problem I faced was
removing the plastic coating and getting to the bare copper cable itself.
I found my Dremel tool with a wire brush was the perfect tool for getting
the plastic off. The plastic sticks extremely tenaciously (probably due to
the age of the cables) but is fairly easily removed with the brush. It was
only necessary to clean about ½ inch of each cable end as this is all that
fits into the banana terminal. This photo and this one may help.
With my cable ends shiny as a new penny, I cleaned them and the
banana terminals with DeOxit Gold G-5 and then clamped the cable down
with the set screws housed in each terminal.
I found in reusing some of the banana plugs that the set screws had
been tightened so tightly that they had penetrated through the wire
itself. This created a real issue in removing the old cable. I found that if I
left about ¼-inch of cable with the plug, I could remove the set screws
and pull the cable remnant out with pliers. I have no ideal how I will ever
get the wire out of several of the spade terminals as I cut the cable flush
with the end of the terminal.
With the wire cleaner that it ever was (the original termination work left a
lot to be desired beyond over-tightening the set screws) and well lubed
with G-5, the sound of my bi-wired pair was immediately better with the
MG1.6s than the single wire arrangement had been.
The sound was noticeably smoother but not in any way rounded off. I
would say that there was pretty much a top-to-bottom improvement in
every audible respect. It was not a huge difference but it was definitely
there.
It cost me $50 for the additional banana plugs that I needed and about
$10 in shrink tubing. I not only improved the sound coming from the
MG1.6s but eliminated virtually all the hassles of making connections as
well.
AV NOTES
As mentioned previously, I invested in a Panasonic BMP-BD60 Blu-ray
player recently. To date, I have rented exactly five Blu-ray discs.
Of these five discs, all played with excellent video. No issues there.
Sonically, it has been a different story. Two BDs played the sound
perfectly and even impressively. One disc I could not get sound from at
all; the other two discs would only play in two-channel stereo.
Unable to figure out why this was happening and finding that no one at
either Best Buy or the video store knew (or cared) why this was the
situation, I contacted my friend Tim Green, who, unlike me, actually
understands how home theater works.
After hearing about my problems, he told me that I needed a new
receiver. I have had my JVC Dolby Digital receiver for about nine years.
I bought it on eBay for only $70 due to the fact that it had a dent in one
corner. It has worked perfectly but now lacks the ability to decode the
new Dolby and DTS sound formats.
I have done some shopping and have found a new Yamaha receiver that
looks like it will do what I need without costing a fortune. The RX-V465
has decoding for all of the sound systems found on Blu-ray. It is limited
to 5 channels instead of 7, which keeps the price down. (I have no place
to put two more speakers, even if I wanted to go with 7 channel sound.)
The Yamaha sells for about $330 so I am going to start saving my
money. For now, I am foregoing renting any more Blu-rays until I know
I will be able to actually hear them.
This whole situation has a distinctly deja-vu quality to it. In going from
XP to Vista, I found that all of the software that I owned as well as my
printer were rendered useless by the new operating system. In many
ways Blu-ray is much the same. To realize its benefits you need an HD
television, updated sound system, and HDMI connectibility. Without all
of these, expect problems or reduced performance.
MISCELLANEOUS
I spent a day last week removing the single-pane patio door from my
listening room and replacing it with a conventional door and framing. I
lost a lot of light but the room is noticeably quieter and should be a lot
warmer in the winter. I am working on an article about this conversion
and will report further on how my listening room is affected sonically.
I am heading for AKFest in Livonia, Michigan this weekend. AKFest is put
on by the folks at Audio Karma and is the Midwest’s largest audio show.
I am really looking forward to visiting it. If you are close to the Detroit
area, the show is May 2 and 3. Go to www.akfest.com for more
information.
I thought these Get Fuzzy cartoons were pretty funny. Click here and
here to check them out.
Kent Johnson
April 28, 2009
A SUPRISINGLY GOOD TUNER
I was at a garage sale recently and purchased a Marantz 1060 integrated
amplifier and a Pioneer TX-6500II tuner. I paid $15 for the pair.
In checking them out, I found that the Marantz had a problem with its
right channel. I put it on Craigslist for $40 just to see if there was any
interest in it. I had ten responses before I could pull the ad, all wanting
the amp at the asking price. I guess I should have gone with a higher
price.
This left me with the Pioneer tuner. In trying it out I found that it not
only worked fine but tuned at least twice as many stations as any other
tuner I have tried in my living room system. A Sony ES tuner that I had
briefly and my own Audio Dynamics digital tuner both tuned fewer
stations and were far noisier on most of them. I have to say I was
impressed with the Pioneer. The more so since I was only using a “T”
antenna pinned to the living room wall and the fact that my house has
aluminum siding. (Good for keeping out FM as well as RFI.)
Listening to the local classical radio station, KFUO, I not only got very
good sound quality but quite good soundstaging as well.
I find components like this one intriguing. When it was new, it was
probably paired with the matching integrated amplifier, connected with
cheap cables and zip cord, and played through similarly priced speakers.
Now, even with a marginal antenna but good cables and a far superior
overall system, we can actually appreciate how good it sounds. It always
makes me wonder what other equipment is out there, dismissed as
mid-fi but really the victim of the components to which it was originally
connected.
I am certainly not advocating selling your Magnum tuner but if you run
across one of these Pioneers cheap, it would be well worth picking up
and trying in your location. You might be surprised by how good it
sounds.
CLASSICAL RADIO STATIONS—GOING EXTINCT?
There was an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch recently regarding
the status of the only station in the area broadcasting classical music.
KFUO is owned by the Lutheran Church and has been broadcasting
classical music for sixty years. The current economic situation has the
church considering selling the station or changing the format to
something more profitable.
I can fully understand the economic problems the station faces. Most
of its advertisers fall into three categories: Senior Living, Nursing Homes,
and Funeral Homes. Not categories that I can or am willing to contribute
any of my income to, at least for now. A great deal of KFUO’s air time is
spent on commercials, which is bad enough. What is worse is that they
are the same commercials relentlessly repeated. I do some listening in
the car but even then, the relentless commercials drive me away.
Offsetting this is the fact that KFUO has a very good signal. I can
actually listen to the station and enjoy it, not something I can say about
most stations, whose sound is manipulated to the point where it is only
tolerable on a boom box or in the car.
I don’t know what the outcome will be for KFUO but what shocked me
about the Post-Dispatch article was the fact that we are down to only
about 20 classical radio stations in the whole country. That just seems
wrong somehow. Despite my complaints, I would hate to lose KFUO’s
classical broadcasting.
GRAMOPHONE ON THE WEB
Recently, Gramophone has put all of the content of their magazine since
its inception on the site www.gramophone.net. I have only explored this
site briefly but will spend some further time there when I get a chance.
For classical music lovers, this is a great resource to have available.
Thanks, Gramophone.
MAKING BI-WIRE CABLES
I have had two pairs of Alpha Core Goertz MI2 speaker cables for quite
sometime. I needed two pairs when my system was bi-amplified.
Since purchasing my Magneplanar MG1.6s, which are designed to be bi-
wired, I have been wanting to convert the pair of cables into one bi-wired
set.
In doing this, I also wanted to convert from spade terminals to
banana/4mm terminals. I have found that spade terminals can really be a
headache for making connections due to a number of factors.
These factors include how the binding posts on the amplifier and
speakers are oriented and where they are located, where the AC and
interconnect cables are located on the amp, and how stiff the cables are.
These might seem like a minor details but I can tell you that connection
problems crop up all the time where spade terminals are concerned. I’ve
had enough of this and along with changing to bananas connectors
myself, I am only going to request review cables with bananas at both
ends as well.
With that rant out of the way, I found changing the Alpha Core cables
from spades to bananas to be fairly easy. The Alpha Core Goertz cable is
about .75 inches wide and very thin. It is insulated with a thin plastic
covering. Both runs of the cable are sandwiched together (for low
inductance). In redoing these cables, the main problem I faced was
removing the plastic coating and getting to the bare copper cable itself.
I found my Dremel tool with a wire brush was the perfect tool for getting
the plastic off. The plastic sticks extremely tenaciously (probably due to
the age of the cables) but is fairly easily removed with the brush. It was
only necessary to clean about ½ inch of each cable end as this is all that
fits into the banana terminal. This photo and this one may help.
With my cable ends shiny as a new penny, I cleaned them and the
banana terminals with DeOxit Gold G-5 and then clamped the cable down
with the set screws housed in each terminal.
I found in reusing some of the banana plugs that the set screws had
been tightened so tightly that they had penetrated through the wire
itself. This created a real issue in removing the old cable. I found that if I
left about ¼-inch of cable with the plug, I could remove the set screws
and pull the cable remnant out with pliers. I have no ideal how I will ever
get the wire out of several of the spade terminals as I cut the cable flush
with the end of the terminal.
With the wire cleaner that it ever was (the original termination work left a
lot to be desired beyond over-tightening the set screws) and well lubed
with G-5, the sound of my bi-wired pair was immediately better with the
MG1.6s than the single wire arrangement had been.
The sound was noticeably smoother but not in any way rounded off. I
would say that there was pretty much a top-to-bottom improvement in
every audible respect. It was not a huge difference but it was definitely
there.
It cost me $50 for the additional banana plugs that I needed and about
$10 in shrink tubing. I not only improved the sound coming from the
MG1.6s but eliminated virtually all the hassles of making connections as
well.
AV NOTES
As mentioned previously, I invested in a Panasonic BMP-BD60 Blu-ray
player recently. To date, I have rented exactly five Blu-ray discs.
Of these five discs, all played with excellent video. No issues there.
Sonically, it has been a different story. Two BDs played the sound
perfectly and even impressively. One disc I could not get sound from at
all; the other two discs would only play in two-channel stereo.
Unable to figure out why this was happening and finding that no one at
either Best Buy or the video store knew (or cared) why this was the
situation, I contacted my friend Tim Green, who, unlike me, actually
understands how home theater works.
After hearing about my problems, he told me that I needed a new
receiver. I have had my JVC Dolby Digital receiver for about nine years.
I bought it on eBay for only $70 due to the fact that it had a dent in one
corner. It has worked perfectly but now lacks the ability to decode the
new Dolby and DTS sound formats.
I have done some shopping and have found a new Yamaha receiver that
looks like it will do what I need without costing a fortune. The RX-V465
has decoding for all of the sound systems found on Blu-ray. It is limited
to 5 channels instead of 7, which keeps the price down. (I have no place
to put two more speakers, even if I wanted to go with 7 channel sound.)
The Yamaha sells for about $330 so I am going to start saving my
money. For now, I am foregoing renting any more Blu-rays until I know
I will be able to actually hear them.
This whole situation has a distinctly deja-vu quality to it. In going from
XP to Vista, I found that all of the software that I owned as well as my
printer were rendered useless by the new operating system. In many
ways Blu-ray is much the same. To realize its benefits you need an HD
television, updated sound system, and HDMI connectibility. Without all
of these, expect problems or reduced performance.
MISCELLANEOUS
I spent a day last week removing the single-pane patio door from my
listening room and replacing it with a conventional door and framing. I
lost a lot of light but the room is noticeably quieter and should be a lot
warmer in the winter. I am working on an article about this conversion
and will report further on how my listening room is affected sonically.
I am heading for AKFest in Livonia, Michigan this weekend. AKFest is put
on by the folks at Audio Karma and is the Midwest’s largest audio show.
I am really looking forward to visiting it. If you are close to the Detroit
area, the show is May 2 and 3. Go to www.akfest.com for more
information.
I thought these Get Fuzzy cartoons were pretty funny. Click here and
here to check them out.
Kent Johnson
April 28, 2009