January 2008 Issue

Affordable$$Audio · « **on:** 1 Jan 2008, 09:44 pm »

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Affordable$$Audio is proud to begin our third year of free publication with a few tweaks to the format and using the single column layout exclusively. In this issue we list our Best of 2007. In addition, we compare the H20 and Monarchy Amps, and continue our series on Recording Techniques & Technology.

Thanks for your continued support.

www.affordableaudio.org

lonewolfny42 · « **Reply #1 on:** 1 Jan 2008, 10:17 pm »

Quote from: Affordable$$Audio on 1 Jan 2008, 09:44 pm

Happy New Year Everyone!!

Affordable$$Audio is proud to begin our third year of free publication with a few tweaks to the format and using the single column layout exclusively. In this issue we list our Best of 2007. In addition, we compare the H20 and Monarchy Amps, and continue our series on Recording Techniques & Technology.

Thanks for your continued support.

www,affordableaudio.org

http://www.affordableaudio.org/ ....good issue...

Zero · « **Reply #2 on:** 1 Jan 2008, 10:24 pm »

Sadly enough, I can't even view PDF files from this PC. Damn you Adobe Acrobat reader!!!!

As an aside; I'd like to tip my hat to Mark for keeping with this for 3 years now. There is a tremendous amount of effort that goes into each issue. This isn't driven by dollar signs folks - its passion that keeps this thing running.

mr_bill · « **Reply #3 on:** 1 Jan 2008, 11:57 pm »

Great free emagazine!
You may want to enlist a better proofreader.

from January issue - Monarchy/H2O amp review..............

On the electronics side of things; I’m used (GRAMMAR) the
affordable Arcam Diva 62 CD player as my main
source. The primary pre-amplifier used was an
Ayre CX-5e, (NOT A PREAMPLIFIER)

Zero · « **Reply #4 on:** 2 Jan 2008, 12:33 am »

Mr. Bill - That would be my article, and subsequently, all of my mistakes.

I ended up having to write the entire thing in 48 hours. I literally ran out of time to proof read/correct any errors. What I'm going to do is go through the entire thing tonight and correct the errors and hope that Mark won't mind making a few corrections. Thanks for pointing them out. Egg on the face and all..

Humbly - Sean

mr_bill · « **Reply #5 on:** 2 Jan 2008, 12:52 am »

Sean

I know how easy it is to make mistakes writing - especially when you're in a hurry!
I enjoyed your article very much and your article was the only article I was interested in and read beginning to end. Thanks for your comparisons and descriptions.

Bill

timind · « **Reply #6 on:** 2 Jan 2008, 02:02 am »

I found Affordable$$Audio just a few weeks ago and have enjoyed the heck out of it. The idea of reviewing semi-vintage or used equipment is fantastic.
The 2008 issue is up next...gotta go. Thanks for the effort.

Zero · « **Reply #7 on:** 2 Jan 2008, 04:52 am »

Mr. Bill,

Thanks for the very kind words. I am just now opening the document for editing and .. sheesh.. I'm going to be making some radical changes to the whole thing. Mark may wish to kill me, but it's gotta be done.

Affordable$$Audio · « **Reply #8 on:** 2 Jan 2008, 05:47 am »

Benihana is sharpening his blades Zero!!

Zero · « **Reply #9 on:** 2 Jan 2008, 06:50 am »

The revised article has been sent.... (drops off the .doc and runs.... while dodging flying blades and forks).......

firedog · « **Reply #10 on:** 2 Jan 2008, 08:55 am »

Hi-

Love the online mag.

I like the new format, but have one complaint: the way you integrate the pictures and text. Sentences and even words are split in the middle (some sentences more than once): This is simply very hard for the eye to follow and for the brain to figure out where to go on the page. I don't see any professionally done websites that work with text and pictures this way. Please find another way to integrate the photos with the text so our eyes can scan the sentences is some sort of reasonable matter.

Thanks

Affordable$$Audio · « **Reply #11 on:** 2 Jan 2008, 05:30 pm »

Firedog:
My fault, a version i uploaded last night, one of the articles near the front was misaligned, thereby messing up the rest of the articles. Please re-download, I'm sure you will find the issues you mentioned corrected.
Mark

paba · « **Reply #12 on:** 5 Jan 2008, 02:26 am »

Hi,

a few words on the review of the Grant CD Player.
It is actaully called Grant Fidelity CD-327a Tube HDCD/CD Player, yet not one mention on how well or not it decodes HDCD material. Does it properly identify such CDs and display some indication on the front panel? Since the DAC chip is obviously a secret we can't determine the player's abilities with HDCD for ourselves. Also, the vendor's website doesn't say a word on it or provide a full front shot for us to see if there is the smallest of indications on HDCD support.

In general, I like the magazine, but clearly this omisson has me question if this isn;t product placement vs actual product reviews.

PS to the publisher. Yes listenable sub-$1000 Cd players are rare but they do exist such as the CEC CD3300R.

cheers
paba

Affordable$$Audio · « **Reply #13 on:** 6 Jan 2008, 12:55 am »

Paba:
A fair question. I will pass it on to the writer.

As for placement. My writers are fully independent in what they review. My only requirements is that it fits into our target area as far a cost. A majority of the time they make contact with the manufacturer. When a manufacturer does contact me first, I fire off an email to see who is interested in working with the manufacturer. It's important to note, A$$A is all volunteer, there is no financial benefit in writing a positive review.

As for the sub $1k cdp's, I'm a fan of the Jolida JD100 and the Onix CD-5.

Thanks for posting

iGrant · « **Reply #14 on:** 8 Jan 2008, 04:59 am »

Paba, the Grant Fidelity 'Affordable Series' CD-327a is not an HDCD player, it will of course read them and play it upsampled thru the 24 bit DAC, which sounds great (better than most affordable HDCD players) and almost as good as our Monitor Series MCD-100 HDCD/CD or MDVD-100 DVD/HDCD/CD Player. Where did you see it called a HDCD Player?, I'd like to correct any such mistake. Thanks.

FYI,

AffordableAudio is the only review vehicle we have come across that:

A. Contacted us.

B. Did not send a long term contract 'rate sheet' for advertising when the word review came up.

Those 2 points make dealing with Affordable Audio very refreshing.

That and they review vintage and new and A/B them is a bonus, plus they do recording, which I have done for around 25 years.

For you to make such a statement over an outdated 'not going anywhere fast' audio format isn't very welcome in my corner. If you want to find advertisers in potential cahoots with reviewers their are hundreds of other places to go to.

We have paid to advertise with AffordableAudio because it is a great mag, with great people and where else will the support come from besides people in the industry. And even their advertising rates are the most affordable in the industry, they aren't going to get rich by giving us unwarranted positive reviews.

Have fun,
Ian Grant

paba · « **Reply #15 on:** 9 Jan 2008, 10:29 pm »

Hello Ian,

first off kudos for taking the time to answer here.
second kudos for being a Canadian company making a HIFi offering... wish there were more, don't know how easy it will be to listen to your products in Montreal but we'll wait and see.

To your question "where did I see it called a HDCD player?" Here I have to answer your web site. Your store web site as soon as you click on that model. The name of the model HAD HDCD in it. It WAS called "Grant Fidelity CD-327a Tube HDCD/CD Player" as I stated in my earlier post. But oddly enough, I just went back now and the same model is now called "Grant Fidelity CD-327a Tube CD Player"... good eyes will see that HDCD was removed from the name but the price stayed the same

Listen, typos and things happen, and I'll agree to call it that. I read the review and immediately went to your website (so this magazine does work)... to see more and that's where I saw HDCD for the first time as it was not mentioned in the article . I see the name of the model had HDCD so to me it implies that it decodes HDCD material. So then I questioned why this functionality was not verified by the reviewer. But if it was a website typo and the model doesn't carry HDCD in its name to begin with... probably why it also didn't have HDCD in the magazine article title or text either... then clearly neither the reviewer nor the magazine nor even yourself perhaps are at fault, so hence I jumped to fast and acted on a typo.

But please confirm that your website was changed since my post and that I'm not making this up, I don't want all these internet folks to think I'm a trouble maker. In fact you should thank me for pointing out the small mistake.

My public apologies to the reviewer for implying that he did not perform a deep enough or complete enough review when I stated that he missed reporting back on a key functionality of the product. Obviously if the product doesn't have this functionality then there is nothing extra to report. Not supporting HDCD directly is not a flaw as the chipset and technology to do it is fading as Ian states... it is a disappearing standard but that doesn't change that there are hundreds of CDs encoded with HDCD.

cheers
paba

Affordable$$Audio · « **Reply #16 on:** 10 Jan 2008, 03:26 am »

Ian:
Thanks for taking the time to answer the reader's questions directly, and publicly. I appreciate the kind words very much.
Mark

iGrant · « **Reply #17 on:** 11 Jan 2008, 12:19 am »

Hi Paba,

I found the mistake in the store (copied from another product

and corrected it and thanks for pointing it out.

We won't be doing the Montreal Show this year as we are focusing on doing our own shows across Canada (info on our site, www.grantfidelity.com ) and hopefully a bit of the US too for potential customers, demonstrators and dealers. Where abouts are you?

I've started buying up some HDCD's too as the recordings are usually great, if you have a Chinatown near you, go check it out, some off the wall albums are available dirt cheap. I got a double Michael Jackson (gag me with a spoon) HDCD for $3, and it sounds great for demoing. Also lots of audiophile test CD's and Chinese Orchestra.

Personally having too much fun with Vinyl though lately.

Ian

iGrant · « **Reply #18 on:** 11 Jan 2008, 12:33 am »

Quote from: Affordable$$Audio on 10 Jan 2008, 03:26 am

Ian:
Thanks for taking the time to answer the reader's questions directly, and publicly. I appreciate the kind words very much.
Mark

You and your reviewers deserve the praise. Great read, when I have time I hope to contribute some thoughts to your readers. For example:

Some people don't know how good their existing system is. Read online how a studio or mastering engineer sets up their system for work (typically nearfield) and set up to listen to your system that way. That will give you a close reproduction of what the engineer heard, listen for imaging, balance and depth of field. Then adjust your system to suit your living space, so that it sounds similar. The nearfield experience will give you a better idea of what you are listening for if you still think you need to upgrade. Affordable 101, is your existing system good enough already ?

Ian

oracle309 · « **Reply #19 on:** 11 Jan 2008, 06:05 am »

g'day all

Many may not know me, but I'm stew nelless. I write for affordable$$audio, AND decided to become a home demonstrator/dealer for Grant Fidelity (after I completed my review last month, but posting it was postponed due to cosmetic changes to some of the equipment). Without trying to pat ourselves too much on the back, I can say the motive for writing certainly isn't money. I may have been the first or second writer "on-board" with Affordable$$Audio. To date I haven't even received a hand-written note from our publisher

No mileage money, no traveling "perks", notta.

And that's OK with me. I think that's what keeps us honest, knowing that regardless of a good review or not, or the promise of advertising dollars, we as writers (and publisher) have complete "poetic" license. Without being critical of some other information outlets (whether print or Internet based), I think many may question the ethics involved. All I can say is that I personally have always cc'd Mark regarding any reviews (usually a prelim is sent to Mark AND the manufacturer, and never changed unless editorial errors or factual content is erroneous). I have also asked for permission to purchase items that I will or have reviewed, mainly because for a US company to send anything for review to Canada, it's APITA to return it to them. This happened with the Audio Art cables. (the same for Ian to send his products to the US). And for any that might question integrity, I did not receive any additional consideration (read BUY OFF) from Ian when I decided to become a dealer. It just kinda happened. I'm glad it did.

The real problem is that many folks will not believe the truth, even when others are being honest because they are so used to being BS'd.

Sorry slightly off topic. I can say that it amazes me that the quality of the writing (BUT perhaps not proof reading) is as high as it is of a bunch of hobbyists trying provide some kind of payback to the community and the hobby.

I'll add a disclaimer to my signature here shortly as well. I am also invilved with Hemp Acoustics and trying to get their customer service image back in-line with their products.

stew