Longtime readers of The Audio Critic are fully aware that many of high-end audio’s articles of faith are bogus. Most of these fraudulent pronouncements about cables, tubes, vinyl, etc., require a little bit of engineering science to refute. A typical example is the absurd practice of biwiring, whose futility is made obvious by the superposition principle, a law of physics not known to everyone (see under downloadable Sample Articles, “The Ten Biggest Lies in Audio,” on this website). Read the rest of this entry »

8-Channel Digital Power Amplifier

Designed by AudioDigit (www.audiodigit.com) in Italy. Manufactured by Autocostruire di Melani Antonella, Via A. Modigliani 27/B, 51100 Pistoia, Italy. Voice: +39 335 290925. Fax: +39 0573 31018. E-mail: info@autocostruire.com. Web: www.autocostruire.com. AudioDigit MC8×100 eight-channel “digital” power amplifier, 480 euros (c. $610) plus shipping and import duty. Tested sample on loan from manufacturer. Read the rest of this entry »

This was an attempt to investigate the high-fidelity possibilities of a radically new and different transducer technology.

NXT is a fairly young but rather large company based in Huntingdon, England. They are responsible for the development of the Distributed Mode Loudspeaker (DML), which is a flat-panel transducer that can assume innumerable different shapes and forms, both opaque and transparent, and is not based on the piston concept but on bending-wave physics. A DML panel vibrates in a large number of modes instead of moving back and forth as a rigid piston-like unit. I have never seen a formal mathematical analysis of the basic design, but there are literally hundreds of products out there, large and small, using the NXT patents, from “talking” TV screens to cheap little surround-sound satellites. Everything except high-end audio—and I wondered why. (Actually, I witnessed a CES demo of a high-endish prototype a few years ago, but it never flew.) Read the rest of this entry »

As our regular readers know, I am neither a professional musician nor a tweako audio cultist. You won’t find either one of those perspectives here. I just listen to CDs (mostly classical), look at and listen to DVDs (mostly opera), and pick a few interesting ones for my brief and modestly offered reviews here. The assumption is that music-loving audiophiles and audio-savvy music lovers will find at least some of my stuff worth reading because I try to engage them on their level. Read the rest of this entry »

Floorstanding 3-Way Loudspeaker System

Canton Electronics Corp., 1723 Adams Street NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413. Voice: (612) 706-9250. Fax: (612) 706-9255. E-mail: info@cantonusa.com. Web: www.cantonusa.com. Vento 809 DC floorstanding 3-way loudspeaker system, $5000.00 the pair. Tested samples on loan from manufacturer. Read the rest of this entry »

An Unprecedented Interview

Editor’s Note: The following interview was conceived, produced, and edited by a longtime subscriber to The Audio Critic who wishes to remain anonymous. It was conducted by e-mail over a period of a few weeks in March/April 2006. The questions were entirely the interviewer’s choice; your Editor merely answered them as best he could. Read the rest of this entry »