Please refer to the February 7, 2005 posting of CD/DVD reviews for some remarks on my approach to music reviewing and my perception of the current music scene. Also note, in the reviews below, that the year in parentheses after the CD number is the year of recording, not the year of release.

CDs from Harmonia Mundi

W. A. Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro. Simon Keenlyside, Il Conte; Véronique Gens, La Contessa; Patrizia Ciofi, Susanna; Lorenzo Regazzo, Figaro; Angelika Kirchschlager, Cherubino. Concerto Köln, René Jacobs, conductor. HMC 801818-20 (3 SACDs, 2003).

The discography of Le Nozze is huge and distinguished; yet another recording with something new and different to offer is unlikely. This is that unlikely one. If I could keep only one of my numerous versions of this amazing masterwork, this could very well be the one I’d choose. Because it’s “period practice”? No, but the crisp attacks, insistently defined rhythms, and transparency of texture that are concomitant to period practice result in a unique sparkle here, which is irresistible. Not that it’s Baroque practice; that would be wrong, as René Jacobs explains it in the accompanying booklet, just as wrong as the postromantic style of so many performances in the 20th century. He calls his approach neoclassical, meaning an updated version of late-18th-century practice. I lack the necessary scholarship to evaluate the validity of his approach; all I know is that everything is musical and in perfect taste, nothing is static. None of singers possess astonishing voices but they are all first-rate musicians and sing beautifully, without any awkward glitches. There is a rightness about the whole production and an upbeat spontaneity that make most other performances sound stiff and studied by comparison. Jacobs is a fabulous musician. Of course, one must keep returning to Mozart as the real hero of this opera. I believe that, even though Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte may contain some pages of even greater music, it was in Le Nozze di Figaro that Mozart realized for the first time that he was the world’s greatest composer of opera, and that realization caused unprecedented exuberance. It’s in the music and it’s unique. As for the audio, I have nothing but praise for both the stereo and the SACD layers, although my enthusiasm for surround sound is now tempered by the incredible soundstaging of the Linkwitz Lab “Orion” speakers in stereo. (See my review posted on February 6, 2005.) The recorded quality matches the performance style—crisp, fine-textured, unforced, transparent.

Maurice Ravel: Intégrale de l’œuvre pour piano. Alexandre Tharaud, piano. HMC 901811-12 (2 CDs, 2003).

All of Ravel’s works for solo piano, every one of them? Played by a young Frenchman who does it better than just about anyone else? That’s right! Unless we go back to Gieseking, Cortot, and a few others of the shellac era, I can’t think of any pianist of recent times who plays this rather specialized music more elegantly, accurately, transparently, with more subtle color than Tharaud. It’s pianism of the highest order. I don’t agree with those who consider any of this sublime music, but Ravel certainly exploits the resources of the piano as few others, and his style is instantly recognizable after just a few bars—the sign of a major composer. It’s a delight to listen to Tharaud wring out the keyboard in Scarbo and Alborada del gracioso. What virtuosity, what cool! He makes these fiendishly difficult pieces sound easy and natural. The recording of the piano has exactly the right amount of resonance, and the dynamic range is exceptionally wide. I don’t see much point in other Ravel solo piano recordings from now on!

CDs from Hyperion

Franz Liszt: Six grandes études de Paganini, S141; Franz Schuberts Märsche für das Pianoforte übertragen, S426. Marc-André Hamelin, piano. CDA67370 (2002).

Marc-André Hamelin is a special case. He isn’t exactly a poet of the piano, although he is a wonderful musician. His specialty is prestidigitation, in the original, root sense of the word—presto digits. You think Horowitz had fast and accurate fingers? That was a mid-20th-century standard. This Canadian pianist is a 21st-century superman. His speed and accuracy are simply unbelievable. When you listen to him play these showoff pieces by Liszt you don’t know whether to break into uproarious applause or to giggle in bewilderment, it’s so improbable. Actually, speed is the least of it; it’s the utter transparency of his superfast playing that is astonishing—he never, never “schmears,” every note is perfectly distinct. The Paganini and Schubert transcriptions of Liszt are great fun but not great music; it’s the process of the virtually unplayable made gorgeously playable that is the attraction here. The recording of the Steinway in the great Henry Wood Hall in London could be just a wee bit drier for my taste, but the dynamics and overall presence are just about perfect.

Sergei Rachmaninov: Piano Concerto No. 1 in F-sharp Minor, Op. 1; Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor, Op. 18; Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, Op. 30; Piano Concerto No. 4 in G Minor, Op. 40; Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43. Stephen Hough, piano; Dallas Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Litton, conductor. SACDA67501/2 (2 CDs, 2003–04).

This is an important release, a significant addition to the Rachmaninov discography. It isn’t every day that all four piano concerti of the composer, including the rarely played Fourth, are recorded over a period of only three weeks (the Paganini variations were recorded about 10 months earlier) by the same world-class pianist and orchestra, resulting in a completely unified, consistent approach—and in state-of-the-art sound. Stephen Hough is perhaps not quite a household name among casual CD buyers but he is technically and musically the equal of just about any pianist in the world today, and the Dallas orchestra under Litton is not far below the Big Five in quality. They play this anachronistically Romantic music (composed between 1891 and 1934, not 50 years earlier!) romantically, not sentimentally, with close attention to the original intentions of the composer and without any of the exaggerated accretions it has accumulated over the years. I cannot recall better performances, perhaps not even Rachmaninov’s (primitively recorded as the latter are). Hough is absolutely brilliant in the bravura passages and warmly lyrical in the songful moments; Litton is utterly meticulous in his phrasing of the orchestral parts and exercises very precise control over the Dallas players. The whole production is a delight. The audio is as good as it gets today; the recording engineer was Jeff Mee, who used to be the great John Eargle’s sidekick at Delos, and the sound has the characteristic panoramic quality that was Eargle’s signature. I have revised my opinion of the difference between stereo and SACD surround sound (see my Linkwitz Lab “Orion” review, posted on February 6, 2005), but in this case both the stereo and the SACD layers of the discs are superb, and the differences are mainly playback-equipment related. If you are a Rachmaninov fan—and who isn’t, at least a little—check out this Hyperion set.

CD from the London Symphony Orchestra

Hector Berlioz: Harold en Italie, Op. 16; Ballet Music from Les Troyens. London Symphony Orchestra, Sir Colin Davis, conductor; Tabea Zimmermann, viola. LSO0040 (2000 & 2003).

I like Harold perhaps even more than the Symphonie fantastique; both are the products of Berlioz’s incredibly original, imaginative early period. Try to predict the next two bars of the music from the preceding two bars—you just can’t, as you can even in Mozart, and then the next two bars sound inevitable! Berlioz and Sir Colin Davis go together like oysters and Chablis, an unsurpassable combination; the LSO is a great orchestra; the net result is the finest performance of Harold I have ever heard. Tabea Zimmermann is a magical violist, and the whole performance sparkles and dances like no other. On top of it, the recorded sound is simply superb; the Barbican in London is a highly “audiogenic” venue, and Tony Faulkner, the sound engineer, has made the most of it. The soundstage is exceptionally wide and deep, and the string sound in the lower frequencies is particularly rich. A great CD.

CDs from the Philadelphia Orchestra

Robert Schumann: Symphony No. 1 in B-flat Major, Op. 38 (“Spring”); Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61; Symphony No. 3 in E-flat Major, Op. 97 (“Rhenish”); Symphony No. 4 in D Minor, Op. 120; Overture to Manfred, Op. 115; Violin Concerto in D Minor, WoO 23; Andante and Variations, WoO 10. The Philadelphia Orchestra, Wolfgang Sawallisch, conductor; Leonidas Kavakos, violin. Clara Schumann: Five Songs, Op. 12, Nos. 4 & 11 and Op. 13, Nos. 1, 2, & 3. Thomas Hampson, baritone; Wolfgang Sawallisch, piano. POA2003 (3 CDs, 2002–03).

Wolfgang Sawallisch is arguably the world’s greatest Schumann specialist. The Philadelphia Orchestra is arguably the world’s greatest orchestra (and unarguably one of the ten greatest). The beautiful new Verizon Hall in Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts is arguably one of the acoustically greatest modern concert halls. Get the picture? This is a monumental set of CDs, perpetuating for posterity Sawallisch’s farewell series of Schumann performances in 2002 and 2003. (He occasionally guest-conducts the orchestra to this day, but a complete Schumann series will not happen again; he is in his 82nd year and not in the best of health.) Schumann’s music flows from Sawallisch’s baton in a completely natural, uncomplicated way, as if he were telling us a familiar tale close to his heart. It is musicianship of the highest order. The textures are crystal clear, contradicting Schumann’s stereotyping as a muddy orchestrator, and every bar is brimming with life. If all of this music were as beautiful as, for example, the Adagio movement of the Second Symphony, the whole set would be pure heaven from beginning to end, but that’s not quite the case. There are boring moments in Schumann’s music, passages of mere note spinning. Some will undoubtedly disagree with that opinion. The audio is stereo only, all of it recorded live, and it is a very beautiful sound, big and rich, doing full justice to the famous Philadelphia strings. In the fortissimo moments the bass gets a little tubby, probably because the hall was so new at the time of the recordings that they hadn’t figured out yet the tunable acoustical chambers, which can significantly change the hall’s signature. That a production of this importance could not find a commercial label but had to be released, by default, under the orchestra’s own name is a sad commentary on the classical recording scene.

CDs from Telarc

Hector Berlioz: Requiem, Op. 5. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Robert Spano, conductor; Frank Lopardo, tenor. SACD-60627 (2003).

Nineteen years after the famous Robert Shaw recording of this music with the same Atlanta orchestra, Telarc’s Jack Renner went back to Symphony Hall to record it once again, this time with Robert Spano and the Direct Stream Digital recording system. One could debate which performance is better, but there can be no argument about the sound. Recording techniques have definitely advanced since 1984, good as they were even then. This time, the 5.1-channel SACD layer of the disc is clearly preferable to the stereo layer, regardless of the stereo speakers. The brass outbursts in the Tuba mirum, if nothing else, require directional cues from the four points of the compass, and only a surround system can reproduce them as intended. The whole vast choral and orchestral perspective works better in surround sound. It’s demo-quality 5.1. The performance itself could perhaps be more dramatic and spontaneous but it is musically impeccable—very polished, meticulous, and faithful to Berlioz. In the Sanctus, tenor Frank Lopardo is a little bit too distant and his singing is better interpretively than vocally. Other than that it’s basically a very good performance. The Requiem is a complex, multifaceted work, involving huge forces, and perfection from beginning to end is virtually impossible.

Jennifer Higdon: Concerto for Orchestra; City Scape. Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Spano, conductor. SACD-60620 (2003).

All new music, whether good or bad, is strange and baffling when heard for the first time, some more than others. Jennifer Higdon (a fellow Philadelphian) is that rarity among modern composers whose music has some immediate charm on first listening. One reason is the unmistakable melodic content, another is the gorgeous orchestration. The Concerto is a brilliant orchestral showpiece, very entertaining from the first bar to the last, although parts of it sound perhaps too much like a movie soundtrack (but then, again, so does Tristan und Isolde, which is not Wagner’s fault but the movies’). Spano and the Atlanta orchestra play the music with the utmost virtuosity, fully on a par with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Sawallisch, who gave the world premiere of the piece, which I happen to have attended. The City Scape sounds like three additional movements of the Concerto, possibly because it was composed around the same time. No matter; I am just happy that one can hear 21st-century music which is of obviously high quality and not impossible to understand. The recording by Jack Renner is as high-definition as one could wish; I tend to prefer the stereo layer because of the extraordinary soundstaging of my Linkwitz Lab “Orion” speakers, but the 5.1-channel SACD layer is also excellent and will be preferred by most listeners with 5.1 systems.

Igor Stravinsky: Le Sacre du printemps. Carl Nielsen: Symphony No. 5, Op. 50. Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, Paavo Järvi, conductor. SACD-60615 (2004).

There is really only one way to play the Sacre, considered by many to be the greatest musical masterpiece of the 20th century, and that is to play every bar and every note of it accurately, exactly as written. No “interpretation” is necessary; Stravinsky himself believed that music doesn’t “express” anything, i.e., that “expression” is bogus. Paavo Järvi (Neeme Järvi’s son) comes reasonably close to playing it that way; it is a superbly organized performance, and the Cincinnati orchestra executes his input perfectly. The music was composed as a ballet and when played this way it sounds danceable. The Nielsen symphony is another matter; it is in its own quirky way as strong and self-assured as a Beethoven symphony and doesn’t mind being interpreted. Järvi interprets it beautifully. The juxtaposition of the two works on the same disc is a bit of a programming mystery; if I wanted to be cynical about it I’d say the main reason was that the timing adds up to 73 minutes, a generous length for a CD. The audio, this time by Michael Bishop, is quite magnificent; the sound of the 5.1-channel SACD layer has exceptional breadth and dimensionality, although I am inclined to favor the stereo layer as soundstaged by the Linkwitz Lab “Orion” speakers. You’re way ahead with either sound.

2-Channel Power Amplifier (Z Series)

Parasound Products, Inc., 950 Battery Street, San Francisco, CA 94111. Voice: (415) 397-7100. Fax: (415) 397- 0144. E-mail: sales@parasound.com. Web: www.parasound.com. Zamp v.3 Zone Amplifier, $299.00. Tested sample on loan from manufacturer.

The three most salient facts about the Parasound Zamp v.3 are: (1) it’s small, only half the width of a conventional audio component, about the size and weight of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary; (2) it’s cheap, one dollar under $300 and about 1/30th the price of a pair of similarly powered single-ended triode monoblocks by one of the high-end voodooist manufacturers; (3) it’s very good, not a whit inferior to those triode jobs. Welcome to the delirious world of comparative consumer audio.

The Design

The Zamp v.3 is a 45/45-watt stereo amplifier. That rating is into 8Ω; into 4Ω it’s 60/60 watts. Meaning: the power supply is not too hefty, but for many applications the power is entirely adequate. The power supply isn’t switch-mode, as you might have inferred from the size of the amplifier; everything in the Zamp v.3 is analog, and the relatively large toroidal power transformer is cleverly shoehorned into the tight-fitting chassis. Even the speaker terminals (spaced for dual banana plugs, thanks goodness) are slanted instead of vertically placed, to keep the chassis height to a minimum. The terminals can be bridged for mono operation; the rated output into 8Ω is then 90 watts. Input impedance is 33 kΩ; output impedance is virtually zero.

In the back (no, not in front) there are two tiny level controls for the two channels; the maximum gain is 22 dB. Theoretically, you could use the Zamp v.3 to play line-level program material without a preamp, but it would be rather inconvenient to reach behind the chassis every time you wanted to adjust the volume. The level controls are more for “gain staging” in an installation to achieve the lowest possible overall background noise. Other features are loop jacks next to the input jacks, for passing on the input signal to another audio component; a ground-lift switch to interrupt ground loops (shades of Bryston!); and an automatic signal-sensitive on/off system, including also a 12V external trigger. Lots of bells and whistles for only $299.

I did not get a circuit schematic, so we’ll have to do without one of Dr. David Rich’s circuit critiques you may remember from the old print days.

The Measurements

I usually start with the frequency response at 1 watt into 8Ω; in the case of the Zamp v.3 it is so flat that I’ll skip the graph. The response is 0.1 dB down at 20 Hz and 0.25 dB down at 20 kHz; at 50 kHz it is down only 1.4 dB. Flat enough for me.

Much more interesting is the THD+N versus power at various frequencies. Fig. 1 shows the 20 Hz, 1 kHz, and 20 kHz distortion into 8Ω; Fig. 2 shows the same into 4Ω. Most publications show only the 1 kHz curve because it’s usually better than the 20 Hz and nearly always much better than the 20 kHz. (The latter condition is known as dynamic distortion.) That’s the case here, too, but even the 20 kHz distortion is more than “good enough for government work;” after all, –76 to –77 dB is only about 0.015% and that’s still excellent, especially since the measurement bandwidth was expanded to 80 kHz to include the second, third, and fourth harmonic. The distortion curves are essentially noise-dominated, and clipping at each frequency is at approximately the rated power level into both load impedances. Fig. 3 shows the FFT spectrum of a 1 kHz tone at full rated power into 8Ω. The second and third harmonics are at –92 and –94 dB; the higher harmonics line up from –102 dB down; all totally insignificant. This is a clean amplifier.

Fig. 1: THD+N vs. power of one channel into 8Ω at 20 Hz (green), 1 kHz (cyan), and 20 kHz (red).

Fig. 2: THD+N vs. power of one channel into 4Ω at 20 Hz (green), 1 kHz (cyan), and 20 kHz (red).

Fig. 3: Spectrum of a 1 kHz tone in one channel at 45 watts into 8Ω.

I also ran a test that I usually don’t bother with, namely THD+N versus frequency at 1 watt into 8Ω. Noise becomes more of a factor at such a low level, especially since I opened up the measurement bandwidth to <10 Hz–80 kHz. The result is shown in Fig. 4; as you can see, all distortion components are below –82 dB from 20 Hz to 3 kHz, rising to a maximum of –69 dB at 20 kHz. There is absolutely nothing to worry about here; this is all an order of magnitude or more below the threshold of audibility, although some megabuck amplifiers yield better numbers (so what?). The most remarkable thing is that exactly the same test at 40 watts results in virtually identical curves, as shown in Fig. 5.

Fig. 4: THD+N vs. frequency of both channels at 1 watt into 8Ω.

Fig. 5: THD+N vs. frequency of both channels at 40 watts into 8Ω.

The single-point noise measurement, unweighted, with reference to rated maximum output, is –106.5 dB. That, folks, is low noise.

Channel separation is shown in Fig. 6. At higher frequencies the numbers are typical of the best amplifiers; at lower frequencies the maximum separation of 66 dB is a little bit on the scant side but still guaranteed inaudible.

Fig. 6: Channel separation at 1 watt into 8Ω.

The ability of an amplifier to drive widely fluctuating load impedances, such as presented by certain loudspeakers, is measured by the PowerCube test. As far as I know, The Audio Critic is the only American audio journal to publish PowerCube measurements. The instrument for the test is made in Sweden; it produces repeated 1 kHz tone bursts of 20 ms duration into 20 different complex load impedances across the amplifier (magnitudes of 8Ω, 4Ω, 2Ω, and 1Ω, phase angles of –60°, –30°, 0°, +30°, and +60°). The graphic output of the instrument shows the 20 data point connected to form a more or less cubelike polyhedron. The test really separates the men from the boys when it comes to real-world loads rather than just resistances.

The Zamp v.3’s PowerCube is shown in Fig. 7. Look at the top edge of the polyhedron. That’s the output into 8Ω at 1% distortion. It’s perfect at all phase angles and it comfortably exceeds the low-distortion rated power because the output in the 22-to-23-volt range translates to watts in the mid-60s. Into 4Ω the power doesn’t double (that would be a level surface at the top) but it’s still quite substantial considering the less-than-monstrous power supply and it holds up well at all phase angles. Into 2Ω and 1Ω the output declines precipitously but it’s still far from negligible, and there is no sagging at any phase angle. All-in-all, this is a very respectable PowerCube for a tiny amplifier.

Fig. 7: PowerCube of the Zamp v.3. The three axes are output in volts, impedance in ohms, and phase angles in degrees.

The Sound

As I used to state over and over again in the print version of The Audio Critic, all amplifiers having high input impedance, low output impedance, flat frequency response, low distortion, and low noise floor sound exactly the same when operated at matched levels and not clipped. This has been proven so many times in double-blind listening tests that opinions to the contrary by the tweako/weirdo element of the audiophile community and by the subjectivist audio press can be totally disregarded. They just don’t get it.

The Parasound Zamp v.3 is no exception to the rule. Just because it’s small and cute and cuddly, just because it costs only $299, it sounds no different from $9000 amplifiers that have comparable power outputs. The possible exception to that statement would be the handling of difficult loads; the PowerCube test indicates no problems in that area (except, of course, limited power into exceptionally low impedances). I have no difficult-to-drive loudspeakers on the premises at the moment.

So, let me conclude with the considered opinion that the Parasound Zamp v.3 is one helluva 45-watt amplifier, regardless of price tag and chassis size. That the price and the size are remarkably small is an aspect of comparison shopping, not of audio performance.